PILÍŘ II. Live in the camp

What did the people imprisoned at Lety leave behind?

From 1942 to 1943, approximately 1,300 children, men and women from the Czech lands were imprisoned in what was called the “Gypsy Camp” at Lety u Písku. The inhumane conditions prevailing in the camp under the administration of the authorities of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Czech personnel meant that more than 300 prisoners did not survive Lety. More than 500 were transported to the Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration and Extermination Camp, from which most of them never returned. A similar fate also awaited the thousands of Roma and Sinti from Bohemia and Moravia who were transported to Auschwitz from elsewhere. In 1943, the empty camp at Lety was set on fire and razed to the ground.

From 2016 to 2019, an archaeological survey was conducted at the site that ascertained the exact location of the former camp and the graves of its victims. After more than 70 years, fragments of the prisoners’ personal belongings were retrieved not just from the ground, but from their forgotten state, the pieces of property they had managed to keep after everything else was confiscated, the last reminders of their lives before their imprisonment. The material archaeological evidence confirms what was known about the camp from eyewitness testimonies and historical documents. However, they also yield new information and bring the personal dimension of the genocide of the Roma and Sinti closer to us.