Jan Hauer (68) traveled to Terezín on Tuesday to honor the memory of the Romani victims of the Holocaust. "We must constantly remember what the Nazis did, not only to the Jews, but also to the Roma, the Sinti and other nations, especially today, when racial intolerance is increasing," Hauer said at the National Cemetery after attending a prayer service for the dead organized by the Konexe organization as part of its commemoration of Romani victims.

Dozens of chairs and vice-chairs of legislatures from countries all over Europe commemorated the fates of the victims of the Holocaust today at Terezín together with many people who survived the Nazi terror. The event was part of a two-day international forum marking the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi camp at Auschwitz.

Today's commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, held at the former Nazi extermination camp, was a challenge to the world not to forget the horrors of the Holocaust or allow them to be repeated. The Nazis murdered more than 1.1 million people, most of the Jews, in the camp, as well as Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war.

The online news servers Blesk.cz and KrajskéListy.cz began the start of last week with articles claiming that the family of the Romani quintuplets had rejected a gift of organic food from an unidentified farmer. The family was alleged to have returned the gift to the farmer without even thanking her for it.

On the eve of the commemoration of the Holocaust and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, a poster and signs referencing the concentration camp at Lety by Písek have been posted in Brno, Lety, Prague and Terezín reminding readers that a pig farm still stands on the site where hundreds of people died. No one has taken responsibility for the text, which is signed with the name of "Pérák", a Czech legendary superhero who was depicted during the war as fighting against the Nazis.

The Konexe association has once again called attention to the topic of the Romani Holocaust and the scandal of the pig farm at Lety by Písek within the framework of the commemoration in honor of Holocaust victims at Terezín. Miroslav Brož of the association explained his reasons for holding the event to news server Romea.cz last week as follows: "Not just the commemorative ceremony at Terezín, but the entire atmosphere around it does not assure us that the Romani people who were murdered will also be remembered in a dignified way. For example, Czech Television is preparing to broadcast a whole slate of films and other programs to mark the anniversary, including programs about the Czech resistance and about Jewish people, but not one program is about Romani people."

The Brno-based organization DROM Romani Center has long been successfully aiding people who have ended up in the debt trap because of usurious loans. In 2014 the courts halted unjustified collections proceedings against 33 clients of DROM worth CZK 2 532 000.