Liberec, Czech Republic: Axe used to damage memorial to Romani children who died during the Holocaust
An unidentified perpetrator has damaged a memorial commemorating children of Romani origin who were murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War. The bronze plaque of the Liberec memorial has been struck with an axe multiple times and the names of the infants who were born in local concentration camps and who were murdered after being deported to Auschwitz have been damaged.
The historian and publicist Ivan Rous, who aided with the creation of the memorial, has drawn attention to the incident. The memorial, called “To the Children Who Never Knew the World”, was unveiled last year as the result of many years of effort by historians, the Liberec Regional Authority, and representatives of Romani organizations.
The memorial is situated in a small meadow near Kunratická Street at the former site of a concentration camp for Roma and Sinti during the Second World War. Its bronze plaque shows the names of 11 children who were born in the local camp and then murdered in Auschwitz.
The memorial is a granite stone almost three meters high weighing six tons. It was designed with an emphasis on the dignity of the remembrance site and its durability.
Despite that fact, an unidentified vandal has now brutally damaged it. “The memorial to the murdered Roma lives. In good times and bad. Today we held a workshop and we also discovered that somebody used an axe on the memorial. It must have taken quite a dose of hatred,” Rous posted to social media.
The damage was brought to his attention by business academy students during a morning workshop focused on the Holocaust. “I believed the neo-Nazis who use such blunt racism had already disappeared, but they most probably are still around. However, the worst thing is the philosophy whereby somebody says to themselves: ‘I’ll take an axe and chop into the infants’ names.’ The memorial is dedicated to children, some of whom never made it to their first birthday before they were murdered. This is totally perverse,” Rous told news server iDNES.cz.
The memorial stands at the site of one of the Nazi camps installed on Liberec territory, where from 1941 to 1943 more than 130 Roma and Sinti were imprisoned. According to Rous, most of the children whose names are on the memorial were born right in the camp.
Two years later, the prisoners were deported to Auschwitz, Buchenwald or Ravensbrück, where they were murdered. The camp’s existence was long kept quiet, partially because in 1943 the building changed into a prisoner of war camp for French soliders, which erased the memory of its original function.
The initiative to install the memorial was launched by an article on news server Romea.cz citing a book by Rous, Tábory a válečná výroba [Camps and Wartime Production]. On the basis of that article, members of the Association of Romani Representatives in the Liberec Region started searching for the names of the victims, later supplemented by the archives of the Auschwitz Memorial.
The first result was the erection of wooden crosses in 2019, which were later replaced by the permanent memorial. The realization of the memorial was supported by Governor Martin Půta and financed by the Liberec Regional Authority.
Rous intends to report the damaging of the memorial to the police with the aim of apprehending the perpetrator. The Liberec Regional Authority is also already investigating the incident.
“What happened is sad. It shows that some people have no appreciation for human life or its remembrance,” Filip Trdla, spokesperson for the Liberec Regional Authority, told iDNES.cz.
