Educational Trail – Journey through the Landscape of Memory

Dear visitors,
you are at the site of the Cultural Monument Lety, in the immediate vicinity of the place where, in the years 1942–1943, there was a concentration camp for Czech Roma and Sinti. This educational trail will guide you through a landscape connected with the tragic fate of Roma and Sinti during World War II. In the area you will find ten stops that will lead you to places connected with the existence of the camp, its functioning, the conditions in it, and with the subsequent deportations to the extermination and concentration camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

Along the route you will become acquainted, for example, with the site of the original camp, with the site of the former quarry where the prisoners worked hard, with the Lipeš pond into which they were driven for cleansing, with the train station in Mirovice, from where the transports left for Auschwitz, or with the burial sites of the prisoners – at the Mirovice cemetery and in the forest near the camp. The trail will also lead you to the place where the prisoners were held, worked, died – but also where society later forgot about them.

Individual stops:

The beginnings of the camp – the establishment of the camp system and anti-Roma policy
The concentration camp in Lety – conditions and functioning of the camp
The life of the prisoners – forced labour, lack of food and health care
Transports to Auschwitz II-Birkenau – the culmination of the Nazi genocide
Large-capacity pig farm – the post-war desecration of the place and the struggle for its removal
Archaeological research – rediscovering the traces of the past
The new Memorial – establishment of a dignified place of memory after the demolition of the pig farm
Places of memory – surrounding places connected with the history of the camp
The parish cemetery in Mirovice – graves of dozens of victims, mostly children
Mirovice train station – arrivals and departures of prisoners

The trail was created even before the opening of Lety u Písku. The Memorial of the Holocaust of Roma and Sinti in Bohemia, and today serves as an additional site. While the trail offers contact with the landscape and real places, the main and most complete information about the history of the camp, the living conditions, and the fates of the victims can be found directly in the Memorial.

The Memorial, which was opened in 2024 on the site of the former camp, includes an indoor exhibition entitled Memory of the Place and Place of Memory and the outdoor Memory Trail. We recommend visiting it to all who wish to understand more deeply the history of this place and to honour the memory of the victims. The administrator of the Memorial is the Museum of Romani Culture, a state-funded organization.