Czech presidential candidate says pig farm on site of former concentration camp for Roma must be demolished
Michal Horáček has published a video on his official Facebook profile in which he makes an absolutely clear statement about the pig farm that now stands on the site of the former concentration camp at Lety u Písku. "That pig farm must be demolished! It must! What should be here is an empty space that we will fill with remembrance and empathy," the candidate in next year's presidential elections said.
The reference to an "empty space" is Horáček's response to recent remarks by Czech President Zeman asserting that moving the farm would harm the Czech national economy. "Do you want to build empty spaces?" he asked the General Director of the Barrandov cable television channel, Jaromír Soukup, in a recent interview.
"I am standing at a place where 245 of our children perished. According to a directive dated 10 July 1942 more than 400 people were transported from here to the gas chambers as part of the Nazi'S 'Final Solution'," his Facebook post reads.
The video has been filmed inside a replica of the prisoners' sleeping quarters that was recently installed at the current memorial. "What you can't perceive from this video, unlike me, is the indescribable stench from the pig farm that was established here at one point by the communist regime. Let's finally allow the good and the empathetic in us to come out. Let's compensate the owners to move the pig farm elsewhere, and let's organize an 'empty space' here that we fill with reverent remembrance," the candidate said.
"To fair-minded people, it is unimaginable that flies and an enormous stench should be here at the site of such suffering. Imagine if it was like this at Auschwitz, or at the Kobyliská střelnice [a shooting range near Prague where executions were carried out by the Nazis], or at Lidice or Ležáky," Horáček says in the video.
Don't miss:
- Miloš Zeman circa 1998: CZK 600 million to build a memorial instead of a pig farm is "negligible amount"
- Czech President Zeman is in favor of leaving pig farm on site of former concentration camp for Roma
- Czech Justice Minister says moving pig farm from Roma genocide camp may require expropriation
- US Chargé d’Affaires at Roma Holocaust site: I pay tribute to the Czech Government's pledge to solve the problem of the pig farm
Related articles:
- Romani film festival in Berlin gives special recognition to film about removing pig farm from WWII-era concentration camp site in Czech Republic
- Documentary on WWII-era concentration camp for Roma in Czech Republic screening TONIGHT ONLINE
- Gwendolyn Albert: "I believe the illegally sterilized women will be compensated"
- Czech library to exhibit all designs submitted for the future Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti
- Czech demolition of pig farm on former WWII-era concentration camp for Roma delayed one year, future new memorial said to be unaffected
- VIDEO: Commemoration at former concentration camp in Czech Republic remembers Romani victims of Auschwitz, Human Rights Commissioner expresses support for a Romani Commissioner
- Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner: I support the creation of a Government Commissioner for Romani Minority Affairs
- LIVE BROADCAST Sunday at noon CET: European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration at Lety u Písku, Czech Republic
- Czech website on the Holocaust launches database of victims labeled "cikáni" by the Nazis and their accomplices
- Commemoration at WWII-era concentration camp for Roma in Czech Republic to give Award for Humanity to Gwendolyn Albert
- Winning design for new memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in the Czech Republic features enormous circle at the site of the former concentration camp
- Here is the winning design for the new memorial to Holocaust victims of Roma and Sinti origin at the former concentration camp in Lety u Písku, Czech Republic
Tags:
Lety u Písku, Michal Horáček, President, Prezidentské volbyHEADLINE NEWS
