Lety - the Story of a Forgotten Genocide
An exhibition of photographs opened at the Czech Parliament in Prague on
Monday evening to tell the story of the hundreds of people, mainly
Romanies, who suffered and often perished at the concentration camp in
Lety, around 80 km south of Prague. The camp has been a source of
controversy in recent years, partly because of a pig-farm that now stands
on the site and also because the camp was entirely staffed by Czech
guards.
The exhibition, which was on show at the European Parliament in April, is
called Lety - the Story of a Forgotten Genocide. Markus Pape is the
spokesperson for the Prague-based Committee for the Redress of the Romani
Holocaust:
"We want to inform the public and members of parliament especially
about what happened in the concentration camp at Lety u Pisku and we want
to show this in a special way - these are not only documents but also the
faces and stories of people and we want to show that this is not only
about countries or their history but it is about real people."
Do you think that there has been any significant improvement in the last
decade in awareness of what happened at Lety among the Czech public?
"I think that there is and we needed these ten years to make the
subject public because this was not mentioned during the Communist times
and nobody knew about it and it takes a long time for people to understand
their own history and to see that there were things that were unknown and
there were things possible that were incredible."
Do you think that Czechs really don't want to know what their fathers and
grandfathers did in the war time?
"Actually it was a small group of people. I think it's a general
problem and it's the general image of history. Czech historians love to
talk about the Czechs as victims and it is almost impossible for them to
imagine that there could be some perpetrators among the Czech people and
that there also was the will of some of them to exterminate others because
of their otherness and I think this is a long way to understand that this
is not only a problem of certain nations but it is a problem of the whole
world."
For years people have been saying that the pig farm, which is occupying
part of the Lety site should be removed and replaced with a proper
memorial to the concentration camp and its victims. Do you think in ten
years time we will have this conversation and the pig farm will still be
there?
"I don't hope so. But it's possible and as the member of the European
Parliament Milan Horacek said, we need to take a long breath. It's a long
way and we owe this to the victims and I think we will make it some
day."
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"Actually it was a small group of people. I think it's a general
problem and it's the general image of history. Czech historians love to
talk about the Czechs as victims and it is almost impossible for them to
imagine that there could be some perpetrators among the Czech people and
that there also was the will of some of them to exterminate others because
of their otherness and I think this is a long way to understand that this
is not only a problem of certain nations but it is a problem of the whole
world."
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