South Bohemia against pig farm's removal,monument to be elsewhere

The South Bohemia region is opposed to the removal of the pig farm standing on the site of a wartime internment camp for Romanies in Lety, regional governor Jan Zahradnik said today, adding that the removal, which the EP has called for, would be an inappropriate solution.

Zahradnik, said the region wants to build a dignified monument worth 50 million crowns to the Romany Holocaust victims, but he insisted that the pig farm’s removal would be inappropriate.

"I think the EP is not entitled to interfere in this. In my opinion it is exclusively a matter of the Czech Republic," said Zahradnik (Civic Democrats, ODS).

He said all parties involved have agreed to build a new monument to the Romany Holocaust victims near the former Nazi camp’s site.

However, the Committee for Compensation of the Romany Holocaust Victims is opposed to the pig farm’s preservation. It points out that the building of a monument "elsewhere" has not been proposed by the victims’ surviving relatives but by Romanies who settled in the Czech Lands only after the war.

A year ago, South Bohemia presented its plan to build a new monument to Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek (ODS) and Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL).

"The two voiced their agreement with it, as did Romany organisations in South Bohemia," Zahradnik said.
He said the government has promised to provide money for the planned monument.

On Thursday, the EP criticised the Czech Republic over the Lety pig farm and called on the EC and other authorities to do their best to have the farm removed and a dignified monument erected (more here…).

Jan Cech, director of the AGPI company that manages the pig farm, told CTK today that the company would like the situation to be solved somehow because the banks and AGPI’s clients are uncertain about the farm’s further operation.

Cech said AGPI is ready to remove the farm or pull it down, but for an adequate financial compensation, as the trouble is not AGPI’s fault.
"No sum has been set in this respect as yet. The media have often speculated about the compensation but neither we nor the state have set any sum officially," Cech said.

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 the Oswiecim (Auschwitz) extermination camp.