Museum of Romani Culture to open new Holocaust memorial at Lety in 2023 and more

The museum is open year-round to the general public. Its Brno building houses “The Story of the Roma”, a narrative exhibition.

This year a comprehensive exhibition of the art of Zdeněk Daniel will open in March. In April the traditional Romani Culture Week will be held as part of celebrations of World Roma Day; the museum joined forces with other organizations this year to prepare a rich program including tying ribbons on the Tree of Tolerance, a festive procession through the city, and two concerts.

Hodonín u Kunštátu

The seasonal operations of the Hodonín u Kunštátu Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Moravia begin in April. The extensive exhibition “Hodonín u Kunštátu Camp: Intersecting Tragedies 1940–1950 . Central Europe” will be open, as will a new exhibit, and the season will also involve discussions, a concert and the August commemorative ceremony honoring the memories of the Holocaust victims.

Centre for the Roma and Sinti in Prague

Since 2020 the museum has been producing a project financed by Norway Grants, the Centre for the Roma and Sinti in Prague(CRSP). As the CRSP headquarters are not yet open to the public, its exhibitions and side programs are being held in Prague in collaboration with eminent institutions such as the National Museum

In June 2022, the exhibition “Otevřená cesta/Phundrado drom/The Road is Open” opened for the first time at the Ethnographic Museum of the National Museum in Prague, a curatorial “illumination” of the fine art collections from the Museum of Roma Culture. It will be on display until May 2024 and is enriched year-round by guided tours and other side programs (concerts, discussions, education).

Lety u Písku

One of the most-followed events awaiting the museum in 2023 will be the opening of the Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia. From 1942-1943, the site of this memorial housed what was called a “Gypsy Camp” where entire families of Romani and Sinti origin were imprisoned and tormented in inhumane conditions.

The prisoners were subsequently forcibly transported en masse to their all but certain deaths in the Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp and the buildings of the camp at Lety were razed to the ground and set on fire. In the 1970s an industrial capacity pig farm was built there and was in operation until 2018.

After decades of pressure by activists, international organizations and NGOs, their demands have finally been heard to close the pig farm, demolish it, and build a memorial honoring the memories of the camp victims. The state bought out the farm and, in 2018, entrusted the Museum of Romani Culture with the demolition and the building of the new Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia on the basis of an architectural competition as a dignified commemoration of the Holocaust and these particular victims.

Another purpose of the facility will be to raise awareness of the constantly-developing events associated with this concentration camp. Director of the Museum of Romani Culture Jana Horváthová says that “The memorial must also educate and inform about the history of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia in the 20th century, explain the roots of the discrimination and hatred they experienced, and spark discussion of human rights and how to improve mutual coexistence.”

Preparations to build the Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia have already begun. Since 2017 there has been archaeological research underway there, led by doc. Pavel Vařeka from the University of West Bohemia at Plzeň. That survey has confirmed the exact position of the former camp and the fact that the farm was built at that same location, as well as ascertaining other information about the daily life of the prisoners; the findings of the archaeological research are contained in the publication Svědectví archeologie o tzv. cikánském táboře v Letech [Archaeological Evidence of the “Gypsy Camp” at Lety] published by the Museum of Romani Culture and the University of West Bohemia at Plzeň.

The new memorial

The form of the new memorial was decided in 2020 through a landscape architecture competition. The museum received 41 submissions from all over the world, and on the basis of criteria determined by the expert jury, just seven entries made it to the second round.

In June 2020, the competition winner was announced as the design by Jan Sulzer of the Terra Florida garden and landscape architecture studio. In July 2022 the demolition of the facility of the now-defunct industrial pig farm at Lety began – an essential stop toward building the new memorial.

This work is being supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, the Czech Culture Ministry and the Czech Finance Ministry. In 2023 the implementation of the first phase of the project will begin, including building the visitors’ center with an indoor exhibit, the outdoor Memory Trail, and revitalization of the existing Lety Cultural Heritage Monument, which should be completed in August. The second phase will expand the outdoor exhibition to include fragments of the history of the location in an interactive format.

Part of the outdoor exhibition will also include a newly-planted forest, the growth of which will symbolize reconciliation and renewal. The opening of the new Holocaust memorial at Lety u Písku will be one of the most important milestones in modern Czech, European and Romani history.

The museum has many more plans in store. Up-to-date information about events at its Brno headquarters and other branches can be found at https://www.rommuz.cz/en/ and on the museum’s Facebook profile. 

First published in Czech in Romano voďi 6/2022 – www.romanovodi.cz.