Thomas Dula was born in Michalovce, Czechoslovakia on March 19, 1944 to Julius and Ruth Dula. Thousands of Czech Jews were being slaughtered as part of Hitler’s Final Solution to exterminate all the Jews of Europe. In the middle of this madness, Thomas was particularly vulnerable because of his young age. It was likely that if discovered, he would have been instantly murdered at the hands of the Nazis. By the end of the war, the Nazis and their collaborators had murdered one and a half million Jewish children.
Thankfully Thomas’ father, Julius, had many life-long friendships with non-Jews in the community, most importantly with the Czechoslovakian Catholic Archdiocese, who sheltered and protected Jews in hiding. As a result of these associations, Thomas and his parents were able to hide, obtain false papers, and ultimately survive the Nazi genocide. During one close call at a Nazi checkpoint, a young Nazi officer suspected Thomas’ mother of carrying false papers. He even said to them that he suspected that they were indeed Jews, but with the Soviet Army so close a few runaway Jews were not a top priority, and he eventually allowed them to go on their way.
After the war, in 1949, Thomas and his family, including his infant sister Gabriela, went to Vienna, Austria to await visas to enter the United States. In 1950, the Dulas were transported on a U.S. troop carrier to New Orleans where they boarded the Sunset Limited for an overnight train trip to El Paso, Texas. Upon their arrival in El Paso, they were met by his mother’s relatives, the Blaugrunds, who had immigrated to the U.S. before the Holocaust. Thomas graduated from Southern Methodist University and worked for the family business, Del Norte Department Store, before opening his own business a few years later. He married Sandra Beleck in 1974, and they had three daughters. Thomas passed away in 2017.
Connecting Stories: Julius Dula, Ruth Blaugrund Dula