Commemorative ceremony for Romani and Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Lety u Písku, Czech Republic, to take place on 11 May
On Sunday, 11 May 2025, the annual commemorative ceremony honoring the memory of the victims of the Nazi regime will be held as is traditional at the Lety Cultural Heritage Monument, part of the Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia. The event is being organized by the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust in the Czech Republic under the auspices of the Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs, Lucie Fuková.
The commemorative ceremony will be held at the Burial Ground for some of the prisoners of the former concentration camp in Lety, where hundreds of Roma and Sinti suffered during World War II. The event marks two significant anniversaries: 80 years since the end of World War II, and 82 years since the May 1943 transport of more than 400 children, men, and women from the Lety concentration camp to the Auschwitz II-Birkenau death camp.
The program will start at 12 noon with opening remarks, followed by the laying of wreaths, speeches, and a sermon. Those attending will have an opportunity to visit the Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia, one component of which is the permanent exhibition “Memory of a Place, Place of Memory”.
The traditional commemorative ceremony is annually held by the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust (VPORH), the chair of which is Jana Kokyová. Those interested in attending can take advantage of a special charter bus to this event which will leave from near the Florenc bus station in Prague; to reserve a seat, send an e-mail to kokyova.vporh@seznam.cz.
PROGRAM
12:00 – Opening of the commemorative gathering
12:15 – Laying of wreaths
13:00 – Sermon
13:30 – Speeches and musical performance
14:45 – Closing remarks
15:00 – Opportunity to tour the Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia
15:45 – Visit to the parish cemetery in Mirovice (some of the children who died in the camp are buried here)
History of the concentration camp in Lety: A place of tragedy and the subsequent battle for dignified remembrance
According to historians, 1,294 Roma and Sinti passed through the concentration camp in Lety u Písku from August 1942 to August 1943, at least 335 of whom died there, 241 of them children under the age of 14. Eventually 540 Lety prisoners total were transported to Auschwitz.
In 1973, an industrial-capacity pig farm was built on the site of the former concentration camp, which eventually ran there for 45 years. The fates of the Roma and Sinti who passed through the camp, despite the efforts of their descendants during communism, began to be publicly remembered only after the fall of the communist regime.
In 1995, when Czech President Václav Havel unveiled a memorial (today’s Lety Cultural Heritage Monument) to the victims of the former concentration camp, discussions began about building a dignified place of remembrance there. Two years later, the ministers Jan Ruml (ODS) and Pavel Bratinka (ODA) announced that they would propose the Government buy and demolish the pig farm and have a dignified memorial to the Romani victims of the Holocaust built on the site.
However, the buyout of the pig farm took another 20 years to secure. It was only successfully implemented in 2017.
The state paid CZK 372.5 million [EUR 15 million] for the industrial pig farm (excluding VAT) and handed it over to the Museum of Romani Culture in 2018. After an international architectural landscape competition and two years of demolition and construction work, the new memorial was officially opened to the public in April 2024.
The memorial is run by the Museum of Romani Culture. The grounds include both an outdoor remembrance space and a visitor center housing a permanent exhibition.
