pietní místo

Czech Human Rights Minister says Govt will sign contract to buy pig farm on Roma genocide site next week

10.9.2017 10:05 The Czech Government will sign a contract with the AGPI firm next week to buy the pig farm in Lety u Písku that stands on the site of a former Protectorate-era concentration camp for Romani people. It will take at least half a year before the farm will be actually handed over to the state.  full story

videoUnique Czechoslovak film from 1960 about the concentration camp for Roma at Lety screening on Romea.cz

13.8.2017 20:05 "Then they took the children away. They took them away to 'save' them. They took them to Auschwitz. They took them to a building with windows. They ordered them to strip and take their shoes off, and then, then nobody ever saw them again. Don’t forget, don’t forget about the children, about that little girl."  full story

Czech company accepts state offer to buy pig farm on Roma genocide site

7.8.2017 17:43 The AGPI company is accepting the Czech Government's offer to buy the pig farm in Lety u Písku that is standing on the site of the Protectorate-era concentration camp for Romani people there. Neither side is publicizing the price.
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Czech firm able to negotiate sale of pig farm on Roma genocide site for first time

31.7.2017 15:40 Czech Radio's Radiožurnál station reports that the AGPI agricultural company has held its general meeting and agreed to transfer the pig farm at Lety to the Czech state. The board will now be entrusted with negotiating the price and other conditions of the sale with the state.  full story

videoČeněk Růžička: Pig farm was privatized for CZK 3.5 million, now it's worth hundreds of millions more?

19.7.2017 8:04 According to the chair of the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust (Výbor pro odškodnění romského holokaustu - VPORH), Čeněk Růžička, it is very good that archeological research has taken place at the site of the former concentration camp for Romani people at Lety u Písku. In an interview for Romea.cz, Růžička said he assumes people will now finally stop doubting whether the camp existed and that its exact position will be determined.  full story

videoArcheological research confirms most of former concentration camp at Lety is on pig farm land

14.7.2017 7:16 Archeological research is being carried out at the site of the former concentration camp at Lety u Písku aiming to precisely locate the former camp and find any eventual artefacts from the time of its operation. The research has been carried out on just a small part of the camp because the vast majority of its area is located on the grounds of the pig farm owned by the AGPI company.  full story

Karel Holomek: Czech President's proposal to leave pig farm on genocide site is out of touch

13.7.2017 17:34 On 24 June, at the site of the former concentration camp for Romani people at Lety u Písku, representatives of Romani people from all over Europe assembled, supported by many official European actors in a group reportedly totalling at least 300 people. The initiators of the protest against the pig farm on that site were not Czech Roma, although members of Czech Romani communities did attend the gathering.  full story

PHOTOGALLERY: Commemorative ceremony honoring the memories of the Romani victims of the Holocaust at Lety u Písku

16.5.2017 7:38 On Saturday, 13 May 2017, the tradiional commemorative ceremony honoring the memory of the Romani victims of the Holocaust was held at Lety u Písku. The ceremony was
organized by the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust (Výbor pro odškodnění romského holokaustu - VPORH), which brings together former prisoners of the Nazi
camps and their family members, as well as those who lost family members in the camps.  full story

"Journey to the Past" will mark Roma Genocide Remembrance Day at Auschwitz this August

12.5.2017 6:30 From 1-3 August the site of the former concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland will be visited in order to honor the memory of the Romani victims of the Holocaust. The "Journey to the Past" initiative ("Cesta k minulosti") arose from the need to commemorate the horrors of the Nazi ideology and the Second World War.  full story

Czech private foundation will raise money to honor Romani victims of the Holocaust - including from Roma

13.11.2016 17:46 In August of this year the Foundation for Memorials to Victims of the Romani Holocaust (Nadační fond památníků obětem romského holocaustu) was established with the aim of raising money for new memorials or the reconstruction and renovation of existing ones to the Romani victims of the Holocaust on the territory of the Czech Republic. The members of the administrative board of the foundation include Alica Sigmund Heráková, an expert at the Museum of Romani Culture in Brno; Karel Holomek, chair of the Society of Roma in Moravia, based in Brno; Gejza Horváth, a musician and staffer with the IQ Roma servis NGO in Brno; former Czech Human Rights Minister Michael Kocáb; and former Czech Foreign Minister and current MP Karel Schwarzenberg.  full story

Czech Govt Roma Council reviews Romani Holocaust sites, victim database, and compensation for involuntary sterilizations

4.11.2016 15:38 The Czech Government Council on Romani Minority Affairs met on Tuesday in Prague and discussed much more than just the scandal in Žatec. After opening with a vote of agreement to call on the Interior Ministry and Police Presidium to report to the Council on the investigation there, the Council focused on the opening of the school year in relation to implementation of the amendment to the Schools Act legislating the education of children and pupils with special educational needs.  full story

Czech Vice PM calls Roma "parasites" during his visit to Roma Holocaust site

8.9.2016 7:45 During the past few days we have witnessed an absolute masterwork of manipulation and the populist abuse of power in the Czech Republic. Czech Vice Prime Minister and Finance Minister Andrej Babiš is a political phenomenon who apparently still has a lot to say to the country.  full story

Civil society members of Czech Government's Roma advisory body outraged by Vice PM's remarks about Roma Holocaust site

7.9.2016 7:49 The Romani civil society members of the Czech Government Council on Romani Minority Affairs are outraged by the Czech Vice Prime Minister's recent remarks about the former so-called "Gypsy camp" at Lety u Písku. Members of the council have called on Andrej Babiš, who is also Finance Minister, to keep his publicly-declared promise and arrange financing for the purchase of the pig farm now located on the site.  full story

Czech Vice PM pays his respects at the Lety memorial to Romani Holocaust victims - but no Roma are invited

6.9.2016 12:45 Czech Vice Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, the chair of the ANO movement, paid his respects today at the site of the former WWII-era concentration camp for Romani people at Lety in the Písek district and once again rejected allegations that he denied the Holocaust in remarks he made last week. He visited the site after a photojournalist for Aktuálně.cz stated last week that he overheard the Vice PM telling locals that it was a "lie" to call Lety a concentration camp.  full story

Czech Republic: Owners of pig farm on Roma Holocaust site are open to selling their facility

6.9.2016 9:40 The owners of a pig farm in Lety (Písek district) do not rule out the possibility that they might sell their facility located at the site of a former WWII-era concentration camp for Romani people. The owners are willing to negotiate about exchanging their facility for another one appropriate for the raising of pigs, Jan Čech, vice-chair of the board of AGPI, which owns the farm, has told the Czech News Agency.  full story

Czech Vice PM to visit former concentration camp for Roma, allegedly wants to find money to move pig farm

5.9.2016 14:54 The Czech News Agency reports that Czech Vice Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) has told the wire service he will visit the location in the town of Lety u Písku where a concentration camp for Roma was formerly situated. The Vice PM wants to raise money to complete the construction of the memorial there and arrange for the pig farm now on the site of the former camp to be bought.  full story

Czech Regional Development Minister: We're negotiating about the pig farm on the Roma Holocaust site, but don't ask for details

3.8.2016 17:15 Czech Regional Development Minister Karla Šlechtová (ANO) attended a commemorative ceremony yesterday at the site of the former so-called "Gypsy camp" at Lety by Písek and told the press that revealing details of the Government's negotiations to buy the pig farm located there could endanger the outcome of the agreement. She made the remarks in response to questions from journalists and in response to a prior statement by Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman.  full story

International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and ODIHR issue joint statement on need to ensure dignity for Roma Holocaust remembrance

2.8.2016 14:13 Michael Georg Link, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and Ambassador Mihnea Constantinescu, Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), called today for greater efforts to protect endangered memorial sites related to the Roma and Sinti genocide during World War II. Speaking on the occasion of the commemoration of the liquidation of the “Gypsy family camp” at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944, when almost 3 000 Roma and Sinti in the camp were murdered, they stressed that states have to do more to demonstrate their sincere and strong commitment to education about and remembrance of the genocide.  full story

Czech Roma to mark International Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day at Auschwitz memorial

1.8.2016 11:20 Tomorrow, Tuesday, 2 August, Roma people from all over Europe will mark International Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day. On the night of 2 August 1944 and into the early
morning hours of 3 August 1944, a total of 2 898 Sinti (German Roma) and Roma children, men and women were murdered in the gas chambers of the Nazi concentration and
extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.  full story

Czech Republic: Traditional commemoration of the Romani victims of Nazism next week at Lety by Písek

6.5.2016 14:11 The traditional commemorative ceremony honoring the Romani victims of Nazism at the site of the Lety Memorial will take place this year on Friday, 13 May. The ceremony is being held, as it has been every year, by the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust in the Czech Republic (VPORH), which brings together the former Romani prisoners of the Nazi concentration camps and the surviving relatives of the victims of those camps.  full story