Czech President Petr Pavel to commemorate the Holocaust and its Romani victims at Lety, just the second president to do so after the late Václav Havel in 1995

Pavel will become just the second president after the late Václav Havel to ever visit the site of the former concentration camp on this occasion. The ceremony will be held on the grounds of the Lety Cultural Heritage Memorial near what was the provisional mass burial ground for some of the victims.

The ceremony is being organized by the Museum of Romani Culture together with the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust in the Czech Republic (Výbor pro odškodnění romského holocaustu v ČR -VPORH) under the auspices of Czech Culture Minister Martin Baxa. The museum said the ceremony is an important part of commemorating the survivors and victims of the horrors of the Second World War, the Holocaust, and racial prejudice.

ROMEA TV will broadcast the commemorative ceremony live online. “The commemorative ceremony is being held on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the big transport in May of more than 400 children, men and women who were imprisoned in what was called the ‘Gypsy Camp‘ and who were sent to an all but certain death in the Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration and Extermination Camp. The transport was organized by police in the Protectorate on the basis of a decree issued by Heinrich Himmler and arrived at Auschwitz II-Birkenau on 7 May 1943,” reads the press release sent to news server Romea.cz by Karolina Spielmannová, the museum’s press spokesperson.

During the ceremony, speeches will be given by Czech President Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Senate Miloš Vystrčil, President of the Czech Chamber of Deputies Markéta Pekarová Adamová, Czech Culture Minister Martin Baxa, Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs Lucie Fuková, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway Victor Conrad Rønneberg, and the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany Andres Künne. Speeches will also be given by Zdeněk Serinek, the grandson of the partisan Josef Serinek, who escaped from Lety, and Miroslav Brož, an activist from the Konexe association.

Musicians Radek Bagár and Erika Nováková will accompany the ceremony. Once it is over it will also be possible to visit the parish cemetery in nearby Mirovice, where children who passed away in the camp at Lety were buried in mass, unmarked graves.

As in previous years, it will be possible to travel by a chartered bus from Prague which will be parked in the usual place near the Prague-Florenc bus station underneath the overpass on Na Florenci Street. The bus will be marked with a sign reading LETY.

The bus will leave Prague at 9:30. Those interested in attending can reserve places by sending an email to centrumpraha@rommuz.cz – please reserve your seat in time as the capacity is limited.

“We would like to draw the attention of those attending to the fact that the access road through the forest to the ceremony location is quite narrow. We recommend you schedule enough time to approach via highway 19 and keep an eye out for the turnoff into the forest marked by the sign for the Lety Cultural Heritage Memorial,” the museum said, adding that parking will be coordinated on the spot.

“The parking lot immediately adjacent to the Lety Cultural Heritage Memorial will be exclusively used by personages under state protection this year and it will not be possible for others to park there. Those with reduced mobility will be allowed to disembark there, but not to park. It will be possible to park cars along the sides of the access road according to the instructions of the transportation coordinators. We thank you in advance for your understanding and for respecting these transportation arrangements,” the museum said.