PILLAR IV. ADVOCATES OF MEMORY

Who fought to commemorate the camp at Lety?

On 13 May 1995, President of the Czech Republic Václav Havel unveiled a memorial at the site of the unmarked burial ground for the victims of the camp at Lety. The story of the camp and the genocide of the Czech Roma and Sinti had recently become a subject of public debate. In his speech, in addition to the Holocaust of the Roma, Havel mentioned the suppression of its memory during the decades after the war, when the location of the former camp was partially covered over by the grounds of an industrial pig farm. He also spoke about the anti-Romani racism still present in society. It might have seemed that the commemoration, in a dignified way, of the Holocaust and its Romani victims had been achieved. However, just a few hours after Havel’s speech, four non-Romani youths broke into the home of a Romani family and proceeded to beat Tibor Berki, father of five, to death.

Anti-Romani attitudes and sentiment still pose a danger to the Romani citizens of the Czech Republic to this day. The story of the history and the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti has not yet become a part of Czech society’s historical memory.

When the 1995 memorial was unveiled at Lety u Písku, those present were Holocaust survivors, their relatives, representatives of Romani organizations and Roma and Sinti individuals. The ribbons from the memorial bouquets and wreaths which were laid at the new memorial carried messages about the meaning of commemoration and memory. Countless more bouquets with similar ribbons were laid at the memorial by both non-Roma and Roma over the next 20 years and more. These people were fighting to remove the industrial pig farm and build a dignified remembrance site. The new memorial that resulted is in no way an end point — rather, it is just another step in the open-ended process of coming to terms with the past.