ADRA preparing gift for Romany Holocaust survivors
The civic association ADRA is
preparing food and personal care packages and household goods as
compensation presents for 850 Czech Romanies who survived the
wartime Holocaust, ADRA's Petra Rezna told CTK today.
Each of the Romanies who were born before May 1945 will
receive two packages with food, two with personal care items and
one with household goods, worth 7,875 crowns altogether.
The first part of the aid is being distributed now, the
second phase will start in mid-August, Rezna said.
"In gaining the addresses of the eligible persons, ADRA has
been helped by regional Romany coordinators, Romany advisers and
other municipal officials, field workers as well as members of
various Romany organisations. We have been given 85 lists of
different lengths," one of the project coordinators, Ales
Hradilek, told CTK.
About 8,000 Romanies lived in the Czech Lands before World
War Two. About 5,400 of them perished in the Nazi concentration
camps, mainly in Lety u Pisku, south Bohemia, and Hodonin near
Kunstat, south Moravia.
Another 864 Romanies were transported to Oswiecim
(Auschwitz), from where 262 were released and 47 escaped.
Only 600 Romanies lived in the Czech Lands after the war.
Their population has increased since, also owing to the
influx of Romanies from Slovakia.
A total of 11,746 people claimed Romany nationality in the
latest census in 2001. Experts, nevertheless, estimate their real
number to be considerably higher.
($1=26.277 crowns)
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