The police officer František Makovský worked as a guard in the Theresienstadt ghetto. He helped Jewish people who were incarcerated there under inhumane conditions.
In 1943 František Makovský rescued 35 Czech Jewish women from deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, by skipping their names as he compiled transport lists. All the women survived. He also smuggled money and letters into and out of the ghetto. Makovský and his wife Anna bought medications and food on the black market, and he secretly distributed it to ghetto inmates.
František Makovský was denounced in September 1943. Although there was no evidence against him, he was put into the Theresienstadt Gestapo prison.
Shortly after his liberation in May 1945, František Makovský was accused of collaborating with the occupying Germans, and arrested again. Former prisoners from the ghetto testified that Makovský had helped them on several occasions, and he was then released. In 1996 František Makovský and his wife Anna were honored by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.