Miroslav Holomek was born in Svatobořice near Kyjov in southern Moravia and followed the footsteps of his uncle JUDr. (J.D.), Tomáš Holomek, who was the first Roma lawyer in the former Czechoslovakia. He was one of the founders of the Roma-Gypsy Union and was its chairman in 1969-1973.

Miroslav Holomek went to the municipal school and started studying at Kyjov gymnasium, where he was expelled for racial reasons during World War II. He worked as a labourer and managed to escape from the concentration camp, where many of his relatives died. In 1951 he graduated from the University of Social Sciences in Brno, from 1962 to 1966 studied at the University of Politics, where he received his Ph.D. degree in social sciences. He then worked as Deputy Director at the State Labour Back-up School and was also Director of the Evening University of Marxism-Leninism, and then worked for 15 years in the Communist Party. As part of his profession, he devoted his entire life to the Roma question and published a number of expert articles on the subject. Due to the tragic history of his family during the Second World War, which suffered from racial reasons, he was very critical to the Communist Party. During March 1968, he and others founded the Union of Gypsies-Roma.