The library in Brno will present designs for the monument to Lety

Brno - The Moravian Provincial Library in Brno will present all 41 proposals for the design of the future Holocaust Memorial for Romani and Sinti people, which will be created in Lety in Písek district, starting from Tuesday. This was announced today in a press release by Alica Sigmund Heráková, spokesperson for the Museum of Romani Culture, which will construct the memorial. According to original estimates, it should be completed in 2023 at the site where the Romani concentration camp used to be during the war. The exhibition of proposals will be on display until October 18.

The opening will be at 5:00 PM, with the Moravian Provincial Library as the partner. The displayed proposals are those submitted to the architectural competition. "It presents all 41 proposals that came to the competition from around the world. Special attention will be devoted to the seven best-rated proposals from the second round," said Jana Horváthová, director of the Museum of Romani Culture. The authors of the winning proposals will also attend the opening. A new catalog presenting the proposals in both Czech and English will also be launched.

The camp was located on the site where a pig farm was established during the communist regime in the 1970s. Two years ago, the state purchased the pig farm for 450 million crowns from the company Agpi, which then housed 13,000 pigs there. The museum plans to demolish the pig farm, but the work has been postponed to 2021.

The estimated costs for the construction of the memorial are 31.5 million crowns. Most of it will be covered by subsidies. The jury assessed 41 works and selected seven finalists. The winning proposal came from Atelier Terra Florida and Atelier Světlík.

"The new memorial and exhibition should honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust of Romani and Sinti people, remind, inform, educate, and stimulate discussion about the past, as well as the current social situation, and address issues of discrimination against minorities and human rights," said Sigmund Heráková.

According to historians, 1,308 Romani people, men, women, and children passed through the camp in Lety from August 1942 to May 1943, 327 of whom died there, and over five hundred ended up in Auschwitz.