Speech by Čeněk Růžička, president of the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust (VPORH), Czech Republic

Ladies and gentlemen,

Permit me to take this opportunity to thank the organizers of this meeting for inviting me and making it possible for me to speak to you about this matter, which is unlike anything else currently taking place in European society. Thank you, Mr Rose.

In my country, during the Second World War, there were two concentration camps for Roma which were in operation over a nine-month period, resp. a one-year period. One, in which my grandfather and six-month-old brother died due to racist percecution, was located in the South Bohemian town of Lety by Písek. The site of the former camp has been desecrated since 1974 by a pig farm in operation there. The improvised burial site for the camp victims is located next to this farm. The other camp was in Moravia, in the town of Hodonín by Kunštát. There the site of the former camp is also desecrated by a fully operational recreation center.

For the past nine years, our organization, which defends the interests of Roma concentration camp prisoners and the surviving relatives of the victims in the Czech Republic, has tried to convince the government of my country that these controversial facilities must be removed from these places, so significant to the genocide of the original Czech Roma and Sinti.

Even after protests by Nobel prize winners Simon Wiesenthal and Günther Grass, our rights remain violated. Even after a European Parliament resolution sent to the Czech government urging them to speedily remove these shameful facilities from the concentration camp sites, our rights remain violated.

Recently a new solution to this issue was adopted by the District government of the South Bohemian region, which proposes leaving the pig farm on the site of the former Lety concentration camp and, to quote from the letter of the South Bohemian governor: “To build next to the existing premises owned by the AGPI company a dignified monument to the concentration camp victims and also a museum documenting the fates of the Roma during the Second World War.”

I was startled to see that the Czech PM is enthusiastic about this proposal. The prisoners and the surviving relatives of the victims, however, are horrified and feel double-crossed by it. We were never informed in advance or contacted by anyone about this proposal before it was announced in the media. We consider it absurd and merely another obvious demonstration of the arrogance of political power. A monument and museum next to a pig farm? What would those constructions be referring to? What would they represent? They would certainly be a symbolic expression of the relationship of most of Czech society to our minority.

We consider relocation of the farm to another place to be the proper solution. We sent the Czech government a draft solution to that effect, which went as follows: We request the Czech government set up a fund for relocation of the pig farm, into which it will deposit the essential finances. Over the course of five years, this amount will be increased. In connection with the traveling exhibition which we have prepared, entitled “The Vanished World of the Indigenous Czech Roma and Sinti”, we would also organize further financial contributions from abroad for relocating the farm. However, this all must be preceded by the preparation of a truly professional estimate of the cost on the behalf of the state government, which we know has not yet been performed.

Ladies and gentlemen, we do not want a megalomaniac memorial or monument. Together with many Czech and EU citizens, and in harmony with the position of the European Parliament, we demand respect for the Romani victims of these unparalleled crimes. Removing this putrid pig farm from Lety and the recreation center from Hodonín by Kunštát is part of expressing that respect. However, for this we necessarily need the very strong support of European politicians and the European public.

A pig farm on a site of a former concentration camp means that Hitler has not died yet.

Thank you very much.