Printed 24.09.2023 09:54 14-05-2008 Rosie Johnston
A bus of students and activists heads for Lety, South Bohemia, on May 13.
They are driving to the site of a former concentration camp, set up by the
Nazis to wipe out the Bohemian protectorate’s Roma population during the
Second World War. Official sources say that 326 Roma perished in the
concentration camp at Lety, while many hundreds more were transported from
Lety to Auschwitz, where they were taken to the gas chambers.
Gwendoline Albert is an American-born Romany rights activist. On the way to Lety, she told me a bit about the commemorative service that we were about to attend:
“I do know that the local administration is responsible for maintaining the existing monument, which is a registered cultural monument, and they have neglected their responsibility in that regard. And them bringing up the quote unquote “local Roma” and mentioning them is, to me, a classic example of confusing the issue. Lety is not about South Bohemia, Lety is about the history of the world – World War II, the history of Europe. It is not something that you put in the hands of a local politician to decide, even though it is important for these people to be involved in any decision. But this is about the Czech state taking responsibility for commemorating the Holocaust in a dignified way. And we see this devolution of responsibility to the lowest level in absolutely every aspect of any issue concerning the Roma, whether it’s the past or present.”
After the service come speeches, one of the most striking is delivered by Felix Kolber from the International Auschwitz Committee. He himself is a Holocaust survivor, who found himself interned in the ‘gypsy family camp’ at Auschwitz, several weeks after the camp’s last Romany inhabitants were liquidated:
And Auschwitz was where many Roma and Sinti from here, from Lety ended up…
Karel Holomek is a Romany academic who was at the ceremony on Tuesday, he was himself interned at the other Romany concentration camp to be found today on Czech soil – Hodonín u Kunštat: “I am a Roma originally from Moravia, I belong to the Czech Romanies, who were almost completely eliminated in Auschwitz. There were more than 6000 of us before the war, but only 500 people returned to their homes.” International pressure has been mounting on the Czech government to move the pig farm from the Lety concentration camp site. He is outraged that, up until now, nothing has been done:
At this year’s ceremony, there was a high turn-out, relatively speaking, of government officials. One of the senior officials present was Džamila Stehlíková – the Minister for Minorities and Human Rights. She said it was her duty to find a solution to the Lety pig farm problem:
“A wheel is related to the earlier period of traveling and living on the road, and it is actually the central emblem in the Roma flag, and so to have it broken here is symbolic of what happened.”
Lasting memorials to what happened at Lety are discreet to say the least
and not that easy to come by. What’s more, May 13 is the only day on
which the Lety pig farm switches off its ventilation system, meaning that
the air only smells quite bad. Minister Stehlíková has said she wants a
solution to the problem by the end of the year, and it could well be that
the Czech cabinet is keener than ever to find one too, because, as it has
been noted, it will make it all the harder to push human rights issues
during the country’s EU presidency next year if it doesn’t clean up the
bad smell that Lety creates.
![]() Copyright © Radio Praha, 1996 - 2003 |