Roman Gronský

* 1950

  • "So I had the opportunity to meet this uncle for the first time in my life in 1968, at the beginning of August, in Belgium, where we were invited. We went there. My parents, myself and my brother, who was eight years younger - I was eighteen then, he was ten. Well, when we went back, we stayed overnight in Nuremberg on August 20, and on August 21, 1968, we got in the car and drove to Rozvadov. There was no motorway then, it was a normal road. And after about forty kilometres, at a crossroads in a small town, a motorcyclist just knocked on our window and said: 'Please, you have your radio antenna pulled up, take out your antenna, turn on the radio. Dad didn't believe it, but we pulled out the antenna, tuned in the radio and found out what was going on. And we arrived at the border, and people stopped us and said, 'And where are you going, please, you're not going back to the occupied country, there's a Russian army there. God knows what will happen!' So I said, 'Dad, if you want to stay here, I'll get home by train, I have a ticket to London from Prague on 23 August.' Dad said, 'No no no, we'll stay together as a family. I lived in emigration for a long time and I don't want to live in emigration anymore.'"

  • "My grandfather died in Terezín after only three months, my grandmother died after a year and a quarter in Terezín, which is absolutely unbelievable, because she was well over 60 years old, after giving birth to seven children, she was transported to Auschwitz, to Auschwitz, where she probably found herself as a governess in the BIIb family camp. And on that crazy night of 8-9 March, when 3962 [3792] Czech Jews were murdered, she was one of them. So she still lived in Auschwitz for half a year. And that's where her life ended. Her ashes, of course, were scattered somewhere in the river, like those of most of her other relatives..."

  • "In 1941, Jews were obliged to wear the yellow star, they had to have it sewn on. And at that time my father's parents lived in Olomouc. With their eldest daughter and her son. From another family, my grandmother's sister lived there with her husband, her daughter and son-in-law and granddaughter. They lived in the Lower Square. However, the gears of the occupation machine kept turning faster and faster, so that none of them escaped transport. So the transport took the whole family to Terezín. Not everybody knows that the assembly point of the Olomouc Jews was at the Hálek school, near the train station. Only recently such the memorial stone was placed in front of the entrance to the school. Many people know the so-called Stolpersteine, Stones of the Disappeared, which are laid in many places and cities in Europe. Olomouc was also one of the first towns in the country where these stones were laid to commemorate those who were murdered by the Nazis - murdered - and of course they have no memorial anywhere so that someone can put a stone there, as is the Jewish custom, for example."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Olomouc, 15.12.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 03:01:04
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Olomouc, 27.02.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 02:51:14
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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It is good to learn from those who are wise

Roman Gronsky in 2022
Roman Gronsky in 2022
photo: Post Bellum

Roman Gronský was born on 15 February 1950 in Olomouc. His father’s side of the family, Lothar Grünwald, was Jewish, with the result that many of his relatives, in addition to those who survived the war abroad, became victims of Nazi crimes. From childhood he devoted himself to intensive language study, which influenced his future career. Together with his father, who was a doctor in Cuba, he had the opportunity to meet Che Guevara. After 1968, despite the regime’s grip, he travelled several times to the West. He also travelled frequently for work, making several trips to Baghdad during the Iraq-Iran conflict. After an accident and the amputation of a limb, he took up sport - especially swimming and competitive skiing - and successfully participated first actively and later as a member of the leadership of several Paralympic teams. In 1995 he initiated the re-establishment of the Rotary Club in Olomouc and as a Rotarian he was able to meet, for example, President Václav Havel, T. J. Bata, American ambassadors in Prague and Sir Nicholas Winton. He also worked for the return of the Torah scroll, which was sold abroad in the 1960s, back to the original Olomouc Jewish community. In 2024, he was still living in Olomouc and was an active Rotarian.