Jana Horváthová: Please, let's be fair! The dispute over the names of the Lety prisoners at the new memorial was about the size of the letters

This is chiefly about the format of the memorial as a whole, especially the form of the circular concrete walkway around the grounds of the former camp (which was not itself conserved). The walkway features the names and other information about the prisoners recorded as being in the camp on 1,295 stainless steel spokes, and one spoke is symbolically dedicated to all prisoners whose names have not been preserved in the records. The format for this walkway and all other parts of the new memorial are the result of the international landscape architecture competition that the MRK publicly announced on 14 October 2019, in close cooperation with representatives of the descendants of Lety survivors.

Rudolf Murka personally attended the announcement of the competition here in Brno, as is documented through the photographs taken throughout the competition and in the publication about it. There were 41 submissions from all over the world and the winning proposal was selected by a jury through a two-round proceedings, the chair of which was the renowned architect Josef Pleskot. Čeněk Růžička (1946-2022) gladly accepted the offer to serve on the independent (non-specialist) part of the jury, where his alternates were Rudolf Murka and another descendant of the survivors, Jan Hauer (1947-2022), who personally attended the meetings during which the competition submissions were reviewed, as can also be documented through photographs.

A meeting of the independent (non-specialist) part of the jury to select the winning design for the new memorial in Lety u Písku, 6 February 2020 (PHOTO: Kristýna Čajkovičová)

Jan Hauer, who was gifted with a great amount of not just natural intelligence, but also intuition, was even the first to draw attention to the design that eventually won while the rest of us hadn’t yet managed to review all the submissions. It was exactly that design that was actually chosen as the winner with the absolute agreement of all jury members, including the alternates, and which has been realized today. The design was by the Czech architectural studio of Jan Sulzer and the Terra Florida landscaping studio, and it can be seen that part of the design was, in addition to the building of the Visitors’ Centre and a plan for planting trees, the building of a circular concrete walkway with the names engraved on stainless steel spokes; you can see the winning design below with a clear visualization of the walkway with the names.

The design was ceremonially announced on 9 June 2020 at the Czech Culture Ministry in the presence of both Čeněk Růžička and then-Czech Culture Minister Luboš Zaorálek. Mr. Růžička was happy with the selected design.

Announcement of the results of the landscape architecture competition for the new memorial in Lety u Písku, 9 June 2020 (PHOTO: Adam Holubovský)

The members of the competition jury were contracted to receive an honorarium for their work there. The competition documentation fully demonstrates that all members of the jury, through their signatures, without any reservations, agreed with the chosen design, although it was clear that the details of the design would be negotiated.

I was personally present during these negotiations and there is no doubt that the descendants of the survivors agreed with the chosen design. It is necessary to add that the MRK, at its own initiative, held a very beneficial, pleasant meeting of several hours in a salon of the Grand Hotel in Brno on 7 May 2019 to debate the design with descendants of the survivors so the course of the competition would be successful and the optimal commission for the designing architects would be created (see the collection of photo and video documentation); the aim of the debate was to describe the features of the culture of the Roma and Sinti indigenous to Bohemia so they would be respected during the creation of the new memorial.

In the interim, we ceremonially launched the demolition of the industrial pig farm with descendants of the survivors on 14 July 2022 in Lety, during which a rare photograph of Čeněk Růžička was captured by our photographer where he is happily laughing because he was finally able to start destroying the pig farm with a pickaxe.

In the interim, the procurement documentation was finalized for the tender for the construction company that would build the Lety memorial. In late 2022, we met at the museum with experts and the main representatives of the survivors (Č. Růžička, R. Murka, Z. Serinek Z. Daniel, V. and E. Absolon, T. Lagryn), reviewing the remaining details for the procurement documentation. Such details were, for example, what information to include about the prisoners on the circle and in what order.

There never was any debate about the names being on the ground in the concrete walkway, because that matter had been clear for more than two years since the selection of the design in the spring of 2022, it was simply a known fact and nobody ever protested against it.

Concerns did exist, however, over how to make sure the names would not be walked upon. Everybody agreed that the descendants of the survivors did not want anybody to walk on that information, although such a concern is not a priori a matter of course (the Stolpersteine, called Stones of the Disappeared in Czech, are part of sidewalk pavements as well, after all). The MRK accepted this and proposed that the information table at the entrance to the memorial would expressly forbid stepping on the names and other information (which happened, that condition is expressed in more than one place throughout the memorial) and that flowers or other objects would be laid there (such as, for example, the candles which were placed by agreement with Jana Kokyová at the site for the opening by MRK staffers, I personally helped straighten them into a more precise circle). During the ceremonial opening of the memorial, the MRK arranged for a patrol of children from a local school, under the supervision of their teacher, to keep an eye out to make sure nobody stepped on the names.

The architects did not agree to separate the part of the walkway featuring the names from the part where people would be walking through the use of any of the more distinctive elements that we proposed. It is necessary to clarify that any intervention into the realization of the design requires the permission of the author (the architects, which is why they supervise the construction) who holds the intellectual property rights to the design. The architects did not accept the argument that the names should not be walked on, but I promised on behalf of the MRK that we would institute a regime of forbidding visitors to walk on them, just as we would install cameras to monitor the circle as soon as we can raise the financing for them. There was no hitch to this and the proposal was accepted by Čeněk Růžička and everybody else.

Čeněk himself and the other descendants of survivors did their best, for months, to aid our two historians with their research on how to compile the most correct possible list of the names for the concrete walkway. The authors of the design, our architects, then absolutely logically put things into perspective: The entire walkway is three meters wide and the names of the prisoners take up just 90 centimeters starting from the inner edge of the circle, so there is enough room for several people to walk abreast comfortably there.

However, what we had not realized before, and what we learned at the December meeting, was the actual width of the stainless steel spokes and therefore the width of the lettering of the names and other information. That information had been in the design, but it was not until my colleagues, during the meeting, clearly demonstrated to us what the spokes would look like that I, Čeněk Růžička, and perhaps some others who may not have shown it, were horrified. What was essential was not that the names are on the ground, as some are alleging today, but how large the letters are and how wide the stainless steel spokes are.

The architects said the design must remain as it was, with spokes of a 1.5 cm width, and said the letters would be sufficiently legible at that size. My responsible staff members (the investment and public tender managers) said it was not possible to transform a design that won a competition under the law on public tenders, or rather, that it could only be changed with great difficulty and at great risk. Čeněk Růžička left the meeting because he wasn’t feeling well, and I ran out of the meeting room and assured him, between the doors, that we would certainly fight for this to the end, although at that moment I didn’t even have my own colleagues on my side. However, I fought with my own team, the contractor and the architects (although they ultimately refused to confirm our request for the change we were obligated to submit to our establisher, the Czech Culture Ministry) to increase the spokes from 1.5 cm in width to 2 cm (any more would not have been affordable).

Monitoring day in Lety u Písku, 16 May 2023, those in the photographs are: Jana Kokyová, Rudolf Murka, Renata Berkyová and others (PHOTO: Jana Horváthová)

The fateful meeting on the spot in Lety at the construction site took place on 16 May 2023 (see the photo) without Čeněk, but with the attendance of his niece, Jana Kokyová, Rudolf Murka, Marie Hauerová, Renata Berkyová, Helena Sadílková, my internal colleagues, the PROTOM company and the architectural supervisor, as the minutes of the monitoring day document:

I was in quite a difficult situation, on behalf of the museum, but I had taken the responsibility upon myself of promising that the MRK would cover these cost overruns. It cost the MRK almost CZK 2 million [EUR 80,000]. Because of this, the MRK cannot buy new acquisitions for several years now and is planning to open a public collection to support that work. This change was taxing for both myself and my economic / operations team in terms of our nerves, our energy and our efforts, and that cannot be covered over by any misleading allegations (there is an audio recording).

We won the real fight that Čeněk was waging. In the interviews on Romea.cz some people have alleged that he “did not agree with this proposal”, but that is easy to refute, our five years of cooperation bore fruit, including documents, recordings and publications. It’s all there, many eyewitnesses to our meetings together are also still alive.

I also remember that before the close of 2023, when the circle with the names was ready, Jana Kokyová told me by telephone that she had walked around the circle and was satisfied, the size of the spokes was good and the letters were legible.

During the opening ceremony in Lety a couple of days ago she committed an argumentational “foul” by making a remark that turned reality upside down, although those who were ignorant of these matters might not have noticed it: “The circle is not fully in accordance with our Romani culture. […]do not step on the names. It is absolutely unacceptable to walk on the names of our deceased. Čeněk fought to his last breath to change that, but unfortunately we were not heard.”

I know it is always necessary to fight for the truth, that it is not enough to conscientiously work with all your strength for something, the best you know how. As a lifelong fighter against injustice I have taken this on. Don’t be angry, I had to speak up. I am all the more sorry that Čeněk Růžička did not live to see the glory of this day, I know he would be satisfied.