Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia has been visited by almost 6,000 people since opening, unique drone footage shows what there is to see
The recently-opened Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia, which stands on the site of the former WWII-era concentration camp, has met with great interest from the public since opening in May. Karolina Spielmannová, press spokesperson for the Museum of Romani Culture, told news server Romea.cz that almost 6,000 people have visited the memorial since it opened. Visitors have expressed appreciation not only for the historical importance of the site, but also for the dignified, sensitive production of its exhibitions, which combine recognition, remembrance and reverence.
The implementation of the project involved designs by the firm MUZEA SERVIS, which has collaborated on both the indoor and outdoor permanent exhibitions at the memorial. The unique atmosphere there has now been captured through drone footage in a video broadcast by news server Romea.cz that makes it possible to view the whole facility from above.
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According to the director of the Museum of Romani Culture, visitors have expressed appreciation for the memorial’s dignified approach toward commemorating the victims, which this site has been waiting for a long time. “Those who have been following the fight to secure dignified commemoration at this site are genuinely glad to be able to visit the memorial as a site of recognition and reverence,” she told Romea.cz.
The memorial features an indoor exhibition and an outdoor one. “While the indoor exhibition, called ‘Memory of a Place, Place of Memory’, is particularly audiovisual and presents the memories both of eyewitnesses to this history and of the descendants of survivors, the outdoor exhibition, called ‘Memory Trail’, features information points and an opportunity for contemplation while taking an uninterrupted, rather long walk from the building of the Visitors’ Centre to the giant Circle of Reverence with the names of the camp prisoners that encircles the space where the camp, which has not been preserved, once stood,” the director described.
The uniqueness of this memorial is underscored by the positive comments in the visitors’ book. One visitor compared his impressions to the way he felt when visiting the Auschwitz Memorial: “A strong impression!” Another expressed his gratitude to all who contributed to creating the memorial and the wish that the horrors the prisoners experienced here will never repeat: “The memorial is dignified and sensitive. I thank everybody who contributed to it. May the Lord never allow the horror that these poor prisoners underwent to be repeated.”
The Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia is a symbol of the longstanding struggle for recognition of the Holocaust of the Roma, as well as a place that not only commemorates this struggle, but will also inform upcoming generations about the horrors experienced by the Roma and Sinti imprisoned there during the Second World War.
“We are quite glad that the protracted struggle to build and open the memorial is over and that visitors are now able to learn through this memorial about the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti during the Second World War,” the director told news server Romea.cz.
History of the Lety camp: A place first of tragedy, and then of the fight for reverential commemoration
According to historians, 1,294 Romani people passed through the camp at Lety u Písku between August 1942 and August 1943 and at least 335 of them died there, of whom 241 were children under 14. Another 540 Lety prisoners ended up in Auschwitz.
In 1973, an industrial pig farm was installed on the site of the former camp and remained in operation for the next 45 years. Commemoration of the fates of the Romani people who passed through the camp did not start until after the fall of the communist regime, despite the efforts at commemoration made during socialism by descendants of the survivors.
In 1995, when Czech President Václav Havel unveiled the first memorial to the camp victims here (today called the Cultural Heritage Monument at Lety u Písku), the building of a dignified place of remembrance then started to be discussed. Two years later, ministers Jan Ruml (Civic Democratic Party – ODS) and Pavel Bratinka (Civic Democratic Alliance – ODA) declared that they would propose the Czech Government buy out the industrial pig farm, demolish it, and build a dignified memorial to the Holocaust and its Romani victims there. However, it took another 20 years for the buyout of the farm to happen.
In August 2017, the cabinet of Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Czech Social Democratic Party) approved the buyout of the industrial pig farm and on 23 October 2017 publicized the contract, which reveals that the state paid roughly CZK 450 million [EUR 17.8 million] including VAT.
Representatives of the Czech state took possession of the industrial pig farm at the start of April 2018 and it was eventually demolished during the second half of 2022. In June 2020, the design was announced for the Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia (the Sinti are a subgroup of Romani people who have been living in Western Europe since the 14th century), and it then took another four years for it to be installed. The building of the memorial, including the exhibitions, cost about CZK 110 million [EUR 4.35 million]. That money came from the Czech Culture Ministry, from the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Prague, and from a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
