Winning design for new memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in the Czech Republic features enormous circle at the site of the former concentration camp

Representatives of the firms that won the landscape-architecture competition for the new memorial at Lety u Písku, the terra florida studio and Ateliér Světlík, have described their design in detail to ROMEA TV. “Each individual who passed through that camp matters to us. We plan to record each of their names,” Lucie Vogelová of terra florida told ROMEA TV.

The building of the future memorial will house information about the history of the former concentration camp and also items discovered during the archaeological surveys conducted recently. There will also be information about the prewar history of the Romani people who were imprisoned there.

“The entire cause of the camp at Lety u Písku that was covered in the public media was a strong driver for us and we ourselves wanted to express contrition for what happened at the Lety camp by joining this competition. We also wanted to express the opinion that such a thing must never be allowed to recur,” Jan Světlík of Ateliér Světlík told ROMEA TV.

“Our project features an empty circle 160 meters in diameter encompassing the entire area of the former camp, and when you go there you will realize how big the camp was and how many people must have actually been imprisoned there. Every 30 centimeters along the circle another prisoner’s name will be posted and that, in my view, is the memorial, the reverence,” architect Jan Sulzer of the terra florida studio told ROMEA TV.

The winners of the competition for the new design were announced yesterday to a full house in the former stables of the Nostitz Palace in Prague by the Museum of Romani Culture. The jury chose the winner from among seven finalists and the museum plans to open the memorial in 2023.

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