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Czech work group to visit Romany memorial in Lety

22 October 2012
2 minute read

A work group dealing with the controversial pig farm built close to the memorial to the victims of a WW2 internment camp for Romanies in Lety, south Bohemia, will visit the memorial on Wednesday, Czech Minister Dzamila Stehlikova for Human Rights and Minorities told CTK today.

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The team will focus on a possible arrangement of the site of the memorial to make it publicly accessible.

The European Parliament called on the Czech Republic to remove the pig farm last week again.

Stehlikova (junior ruling Greens) said in reaction that the EP did not see technical problems connected with the removal.

The fact that the farm has not been removed was not due to "a lack of political will," Stehlikova said. She added that the removal was a long-term goal.

The EP resolution on Lety "torpedoed" agreement on the issue, South Bohemian regional governor Jan Zahradnik (senior ruling Civic Democrats, ODS) said.

Previously, the south Bohemian authorities agreed with local Romanies, the farm’s management and government representatives that a monument would be erected off the pig farm. However, the Committee for Compensation of the Romany Holocaust Victims (VPORH) insists on the removal of the farm.

Stehlikova said it was important that the former Romany inmates and their descendants be satisfied with the solution.

The work group plans to deal with the issue in two stages. First, it will focus on the accessibility of the memorial site.

Radka Soukupova, head of the office of the government council for Romany issues, said only a path led to the site and that it was badly marked.

Second, a long-term solution to the pig farm will be sought in cooperation with all parties involved.

Soukupova confirmed that no immediate solution was possible.

According to historians, a total of 1,308 people were interned in the Lety camp during World War Two, 327 of whom died there and more than 500 were transported to extermination camps.

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