Čeněk Růžička, chair of the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust in the Czech Republic, who achieved the removal of an industrial pig farm from a Holocaust site, has passed away

Mr. Růžička co-founded and led the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust in 1997, through which he strove for the dignified commemoration of the Romani victims of the Holocaust and for the compensation of Romani survivors until his last moments of life. He belonged to a family of indigenous Czech Roma who lived in the Czech lands for several centuries and were tragically subjected to racial persecution during the Second World War.

His mother, Alžběta Růžičková, was imprisoned at the concentration camp of Lety u Písku, from which she was then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Most of her family died during the war. 

Mr. Růžička was a longtime fighter for the removal of an industrial pig farm from the site of that concentration camp at Lety u Písku and for the building of a dignified memorial there. In 2017, the Embassy of the United States of America awarded him the Alice Garrigue Masaryk Human Rights Award. 

That same year, he was awarded the Artis Bohemiae Amicis Prize by then-Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman. The minister appreciated his tireless efforts to achieve satisfaction for Holocaust victims of Romani origin, including through his cultural activities, primarily exhibitions on this subject.