Drone footage on ROMEA TV of the construction underway on the Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia

The building of the Visitor’s Center is being completed, while the circular path at the back of the memorial complex is already installed and will feature the names of the persons who, from 1942-1943, were imprisoned in what was called the “Gypsy Camp”, now inscribed on rays radiating around the circle. ROMEA TV has taken exclusive video footage of the current format of the grounds using a drone.

The footage also shows the recently-planted trees which will be part of the memorial. “The newly-planted forest will symbolize the lost Romani community members. It is exactly this forest that replaces them symbolically, and as it grows we believe that coexistence in our country will improve between the majority and the Romani minority, who have been forgotten and whose genocide during the Second World War was once absolutely displaced from our country’s history,” the director of the Museum of Romani Culture, Jana Horváthová, said during the commemorative planting of the trees in November.

The path has also been completed that connects the site of the new memorial with the original Lety Cultural Heritage Monument, which features an amphitheater for commemorations, a replica of the barracks in the camp, and the stone monument by Zdeněk Hůla near the unmarked burial ground for some of those who died in the camp. In December, a new cross was erected there and blessed by Father Jozef Gumenický.

“When we consecrate this cross, we realize that it stands not just for pain and suffering, but also for hope. It stands not only for the pain of the people who experienced the hardships of the war here, who lost their lives, and who are buried in this place, but it also stands for the hope that their pain and their suffering will give birth to something new and beautiful, and that we will never forget them,” Gumenický said on that occasion.

VIDEO

The location of the former “Gypsy Camp”, which was subsequently covered over by the industrial pig farm, has taken on a completely different form since August 2022. A basic milestone, the buyout of the farm and then its demolition, has been achieved and currently the building of the Memorial is intensively underway, which will feature both an indoor and an outdoor exhibition.

Entire families were imprisoned in the camp, ranging from newborns to the elderly, and had to put up with inhumane living conditions under the supervision of armed guards. According to the most recent historical research, 1,295 people passed through the camp at Lety, of whom at least 336 died there.

Most of those who died there were interred in an unmarked burial ground near the camp itself. The buildings were razed to the ground and set on fire after the last mass transport left the camp in 1943.

As of the 1970s, an industrial pig farm was in operation at the site. It covered practically the whole area of the former camp and was located near the unmarked burial ground.

The industrial pig farm became a symbol, over time, of these historical events and the fact that they were overlooked, a reminder of the respect lacking for the people who had suffered and died in the camp. In May 1995, at the location of what was presumed to be the unmarked burial ground of the camp victims, then-President Václav Havel unveiled a monument to them. 

It was not until 2018, after 20 years of appeals by individuals and international organizations, that the Czech state bought out the industrial pig farm. That year the administrator of the grounds became the Museum of Romani Culture.

Selected events related to the Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia, which will open in February 2024:

13 May 1995 – President Václav Havel unveiled a monument to the Romani victims of the Second World War at Lety in the Písek area, at the site of what was believed to be the unmarked burial ground for camp prisoners. The monument was installed near the grounds of the industrial pig farm which had been built in the place where the concentration camp for Roma had been located during the Second World War.

12 May 1997 – Ministers Pavel Bratinka and Jan Ruml announced during a commemorative ceremony honoring the memories of Holocaust victims of Romani origin that they would propose the Government buy out the industrial pig farm, demolish it, and have a dignified memorial to the Holocaust victims of Romani origin built there instead. The AGPI company, which owned the industrial pig farm, subsequently announced that it was willing to relocate the farm in exchange for “adequate compensation”.

The problem was passed down to subsequent administrations: the Governments of Václav Klaus (Civic Democratic Party – ODS), Josef Tošovský (unaffiliated) and Jiří Paroubek (Czech Social Democratic Party – ČSSD) all said that they would resolve it (but never did), while in 1999 President Václav Havel had called removing the pig farm and building a remembrance site a crucial matter, as did Human Rights Minister Michael Kocáb (for the Greens) later, and Czech Government Human Rights Commissioners frequently held negotiations about the situation.

8 April 2005 – The European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning discrimination against Romani people. The text called on candidate countries, European Union institutions and Member States to adopt appropriate measures to improve the position of Romani people in their societies. The resolution called on the Czech Republic in particular to close and demolish the industrial pig farm at Lety.

14 May 2005 – Then-President Václav Klaus drew attention when, in an interview for the daily Lidové noviny, he alleged that the Lety camp had not been “a concentration camp in the sense of the term”, adding that it had not been intended for Roma but “for those who refused to work”. His opinion sparked outrage among many organizations run by Romani people and among some politicians.

6 April 2007 – Then-Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek (ODS) said the Government would not have money for relocating the industrial pig farm at Lety. Similar claims were made by Prime Minister Petr Nečas (ODS) in 2012 and Bohuslav Sobotka (ČSSD) in May of 2014, who said the tens of millions of Czech crowns that would be necessary to demolishing the farm and building a new one could be used, for example, for the education of Romani children and for improving the conditions in the socially excluded localities.

18 June 2010 – A remembrance site built near the former camp for Roma was officially opened to the public. During the course of four months an amphitheater had been installed, as had two replicas of the original wooden barracks featuring an exhibition commemorating the memory of the Romani victims of Nazism, along with a parking lot and new access roads. Culture Minister Václav Riedlbauch said at the time that the credit for the installation belonged chiefly to Human Rights Minister Michael Kocáb. The Government released CZK 21.4 million [EUR 875,000] for the project.

25 July 2013 – The United Nations Human Rights Committee called on the Czech Republic to close the industrial pig farm.

13 May 2016 – Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier (ČSSD) said the industrial pig farm would apparently remain in place on the site of the former camp. He held several negotiations with the owners which never reached any concrete conclusions. At the beginning of August that year, however, then-Culture Minister Daniel Herman (Christian Democrats – KDU-ČSL) announced that the Government was close to an agreement on buying out the farm.

6 September 2016 – Then-Finance Minister and head of the “Association of Dissatisfied Citizens” (ANO) movement Andrej Babiš became the target of criticism for remarks he made about Lety. According to a photojournalist for news server Aktuálně.cz, Babiš called the claim that Lety had been a concentration camp a “lie”. Babiš later apologized and distanced himself from those remarks. Babiš then said he wanted to find money to arrange for the buyout of the industrial pig farm and to build the memorial.

7 November 2016 – The Government decided to issue an expert opinion appraising the value of the land beneath the industrial pig farm at Lety so the state could buy it.

13 July 2017 – Representatives of the AGPI company and the Government exchanged offers for the eventual buyout. The company’s General Assembly expressed its agreement on 31 July with transferring the grounds to the state and announced on 7 August that it accepted the Government’s offer to purchase the farm.

21 August 2017 – The Government approved the buyout of the industrial pig farm.

23 November 2017 – The state concluded a contract with the owner of the industrial pig farm at Lety to purchase it for CZK 450.8 million [EUR 18.4 million] including VAT. The purchase agreement was signed by the director of the Museum of Romani Culture, Jana Horváthová, and the chairman of the board of AGPI, Jan Čech, in Prague. The appendix on approval was signed for on behalf of the Czech state by Culture Minister Daniel Herman (KDU-ČSL).

3 April 2018 – The AGPI company handed the industrial pig farm over to representatives of the Czech state. Representatives of the Museum of Romani Culture took over the grounds. At the time it was said that the demolition would happen by the end of the year, but the work began later than that.

9 June 2020 – The winner of the competition for the design of the Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia was the joint design by Atelier Terra Florida and Atelier Světlík.

22 July 2022 – The demolition of the industrial pig farm was launched symbolically.

20 December 2022 – The demolition of the former industrial pig farm finished. The cost of the demolition had originally been estimated at CZK 110 million [EUR 4.5 million]. Eventually, however, the demolition cost just CZK 10 million [EUR 407,000].

31 January 2023 – The winner of the tender to build the Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia was the company Protom Strakonice, which succeeded with a bid of CZK 98.6 million [EUR 4 million]. A Visitors Center will be installed, and the exhibitions were expected to cost even more money, with the indoor exhibition priced at CZK 10.5 million [EUR 427,000]. Money from Norway Grants was to cover the indoor exhibition, while the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany promised CZK 2.6 million [EUR 106,000] for the outdoor one.

13 November 2023 – Representatives of the Museum of Romani Culture, which is in charge of the grounds, announced that the Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia will open in February 2024. Politicians and others symbolically planted trees there. Most of the seedlings were donated by the Orlík Estate of Jan and Karel Schwarzenberg.

12 December 2023 – In the presence of Father Jozef Gumenický, a newly-erected cross was blessed at the Lety Cultural Heritage Monument.