Renewed Controversy at the Lety Concentration Camp
In recent days, the site of Lety near Pisek has been back in the spotlight.
The Czech Republic's National Party stirred-up controversy when it erected
a memorial stone to victims of WWII near the site where a Roma
concentration camp stood between September 1942 and spring 1945. Seeing it
as a denial of the Roma Holocaust, the mayor of Lety had the stone removed
late last week. On Saturday, January 21st members of the National Party
held an organized gathering at Lety, where Roma leaders and their
supporters also met to guard what they consider a sacred memorial. Linda
Mastalir was there and spoke to people on both sides of the issue.
What you heard there was Markus Pape, a lawyer and human rights activist,
shouting "Stop Nazism!" as he was taken into custody by police
after interrupting the speech of Petra Edelmannova, the National Party's
leader. Pape went to the spot of the National Party's gathering on his own
accord, wanting to start a dialogue and explain to the right-wing party
members that over 300 Roma had not died at Lety because of unhygienic
conditions, but rather because they were interned in a concentration camp.
However, the very idea of starting a dialogue is a point of conflict
amongst Roma leaders and their supporters.
"Markus, I don't think it's a good idea for you to take such a
step."
Ondrej Gina, a prominent Roma leader there, explaining to Markus Pape that
acknowledging the National Party's gathering is a mistake. True to his
position, Gina stayed behind to guard the memorial to victims of the Roma
Holocaust for fear that the "Nazis" would damage the stone
structure erected in 1995. Cenek Ruzicka, another Roma leader, also stood
his ground to protect the site where his own father and other relatives
died during WWII.
"My dad, he would have to rise from his grave and smack me in the
face, if I allowed one of these scoundrels to come here and enter this
space. I can't allow it to happenI simply can't."
During our walk to the site of the National Party's gatheringabout a
kilometre away from the existing Roma memorialFedor Gal, a Slovak
intellectual resident in Prague and himself a Jewish Holocaust survivor,
told me why a dialogue with the National Party is impossible:
"There's no dialogue possible with extremists because they come from
a totally different world. I really don't know what the dialogue would be
about, but I'm not going there to engage in a discussion. I'm going there
to show that we're not afraid of them, and that they don't belong herebut
we can't talk about any dialogue. I should engage in a dialogue with
someone who denies the Holocaust?when I myself was born in a
concentration camp and three-quarters of my family died in the gas
chambers? That's nonsense."
Saturday's drama certainly centred around the detainment of Markus Pape
and the National Party members whom he calls neo-Nazis. Yet by Monday
morning the National Party's web pages were filled with articles referring
to Pape as a "German Nazi." Petra Edelmannova, the National
Party's leader, takes the position that the money the state intends to use
to remove a pig farm at the site of Lety would be better invested in
healthcare, or other needy areas.
"The gypsy lobbyists are the only ones, together with some
pseudo-lobbyists, historical revisionists, and a few parliamentarians of
the soon-defunct government of the Socialist International who are
pressing [for the pig farm's removal] at the expense of children, who have
the ceiling falling on their heads in Motol hospital."
Gwendolyn Albert, the Director of the League of Human Rights, shared her
opinion on the National Party's monument at Lety near Pisek, and explained
why she came to support the Roma community.
"I've come here today to express my support for the people who
originally had a monument erected to the victims of Lety, to express my
support for the mayor of Lety who did the right thing in removing this
unofficial monument that was erected by the National Party."
Was it really the mayor who removed the monument?
"That's what it said in the media. My understanding of the legal
situation is that because the town owns the parking lot on which they put
their rock, the mayor had to request that it be removedthere wasn't any
other way to do that without an official request. So, this was finally
achieved and I think that was the right thing to do, and I'm here to
express my support. In addition, I personally have been active with the
Committee for the Compensation of the Romany Holocaust for the last 10
years in trying to get the pig farm removed from this site. I think the
pig farm is really the reason that this is something parties try to
politically capitalize on, because they know the issue of removing it at
the state's expense is much more of a recognition of what took place here
than simply erecting a monument, which is what happened 10 years
ago."
What does the controversy at Lety indicate about Czech society, and the
history of the Roma Holocaust in central Europe?
"Unfortunately to me it's still a very set indicator that parties
know that the anti-Roma sentiment in this country is a politically
successful tactic. They know that it's something they can bank on,
something to which the media will respond, something that they can bank on
to maybe get extremist voters to go along with them."
What are the prospects for having the pig farm removal from the site of
Lety?
"In 1998 the government recognized that this was something that
should actually occur, and so since then it's been a question of actually
either negotiating with the owners to make them realize that they own
something on land that is sacredthat what they own is a desecration.
Also, if you go back in the history of this problem, there is even a
larger issue which is that the farms were originally owned by the state,
and they were privatized when the issue of them being here and of a
missing monument to the victims [arose]. They were then privatized very
quickly and for far less money than many people at the time thought was
responsible. So from a certain point of view we can say that the state's
willingness to take full responsibility for acknowledging what has gone on
here has always been half-hearted. They thought that they could get rid of
responsibility in 1994 by privatizing the farm and that didn't work, and
then they created this monument and that isn't enough because we're
standing here right now and you can smell the pig shit. Those of us for
whom this is a serious part of recognizing the history of totalitarianism
in central Europe...to me it's very depressing that there still exists so
much misunderstanding, genuine incomprehensionI think it's genuine
incomprehension of the meaning of the Holocaust, of the meaning of places
like Lety. It would not have been possible for the entire extermination
mechanism to have worked without places like this all over Europe."
Are you of the opinion that the issue of Lety in the Czech Republic is so
controversial, or so unrecognized, primarily because it was a camp that
housed mostly Roma?
"Yes, I believe that there is more or less a straight line between
the fact that the victims here were Roma, and the fact that Roma since
1989 have been discriminated against in many, many areas. I will never
forget it: I was actually here in 1989 during the revolution and in early
1990, one of the first other open, public gatherings I saw on Wenceslaus
Square was a gathering of fans of Nazism. I don't understand how anyone in
this part of the world can embrace that ideology, but they do. I think it
also has a lot to do with the unrecognized, undiscussed history of
collaboration with the Nazis, not only here but all over Europe. To me
it's tragic that there isn't yet a consensus in the Czech Republic about
WWII, about the Holocaust, about what happened. I think it's tragic."
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What you heard there was Markus Pape, a lawyer and human rights activist,
shouting "Stop Nazism!" as he was taken into custody by police
after interrupting the speech of Petra Edelmannova, the National Party's
leader. Pape went to the spot of the National Party's gathering on his own
accord, wanting to start a dialogue and explain to the right-wing party
members that over 300 Roma had not died at Lety because of unhygienic
conditions, but rather because they were interned in a concentration camp.
However, the very idea of starting a dialogue is a point of conflict
amongst Roma leaders and their supporters.
"There's no dialogue possible with extremists because they come from
a totally different world. I really don't know what the dialogue would be
about, but I'm not going there to engage in a discussion. I'm going there
to show that we're not afraid of them, and that they don't belong herebut
we can't talk about any dialogue. I should engage in a dialogue with
someone who denies the Holocaust?when I myself was born in a
concentration camp and three-quarters of my family died in the gas
chambers? That's nonsense."
"The gypsy lobbyists are the only ones, together with some
pseudo-lobbyists, historical revisionists, and a few parliamentarians of
the soon-defunct government of the Socialist International who are
pressing [for the pig farm's removal] at the expense of children, who have
the ceiling falling on their heads in Motol hospital."
What does the controversy at Lety indicate about Czech society, and the
history of the Roma Holocaust in central Europe?
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