The new memorial in Hodonín near Kunštát will be managed by the Romani museum

photo: National Pedagogical Museum

Prague - The new memorial in Hodonín near Kunštát in Blanensko, at the site of the protectorate concentration camp for Roma, will be managed by the Museum of Romani Culture. The complex will be taken over from the National Pedagogical Museum, which established the memorial center. This was approved by the government today, the cabinet's press office informed ČTK today. The memorial was originally supposed to open this August. However, preparations were halted due to uncertainties about who should run the exhibitions and what they should look like. It is currently unclear when the complex will be accessible.

The Government Council for Romani Minority Affairs has long been advocating that Romani memorial sites be managed by Romani organizations or institutions that focus on the history of the Roma. This is also included in the Romani integration strategy. Council members criticized the preparations for the memorial. They were upset that the connection "Romani holocaust" was missing from the name of the memorial site. The new center is also meant to recall the internment center for Germans and a forced labor camp. The council requested that "the central theme" remain Romani history and that the memorial be transferred from the pedagogical museum of the Ministry of Education to the Romani museum under the Ministry of Culture.

Jana Horváthová, the director of the Museum of Romani Culture, welcomed the transfer of the memorial to the museum's management. "We have been striving for this for the third year. We also appreciate that we managed to negotiate some conditions to ensure that it can be at a dignified level. We have too few staff and a large volume of work," Horváthová told ČTK today. According to her, the number of staff at the museum will increase by six due to the acquisition of the memorial. "Otherwise, it wouldn't be easy. We currently have 23.5 staff members, plus additional staff due to foreign projects. Otherwise, we have 40 volunteers who work for free. However, there will need to be a manager, a leader, or guides at the complex," added Horváthová. The museum has been functioning as an association since 1991 and came under state control in 2005.

The procedure for the transfer was proposed by the team of the Minister for Human Rights. In the documents for the government, they stated that the transfer "is not in conflict with the goal of the memorial, which is to honor the memory of all victims interned at the camp." The Ministry of Education had previously informed ČTK that the exhibitions are devoted 90 percent to the Romani theme and the Romani holocaust.

In the so-called Gypsy camp in Hodonín near Kunštát, the protectorate authorities collected Moravian Roma from August 1942 to September 1943 before transporting them to Auschwitz. A total of 1,396 children and adults passed through the facility, 207 of whom died there. Afterwards, a re-educational camp was set up there, and at the end of the war, it served as a training center for the Wehrmacht, and after liberation, it became a hospital for Red Army soldiers. From December 1945 to October 1946, it was a collection center for displaced Germans. By the end of 1950, the forced labor camp closed after two years. During socialism, a recreational facility was built on the site.

According to the plan, the pedagogical museum should transfer the area to the Office for the Representation of the State in Property Affairs, which would then hand it over to the Museum of Romani Culture on January 1. The Ministers of Education and Culture are expected to change the founding charters of both museums by the end of October, and the Minister of Finance should ensure funding for the museum's operation in the cultural department's budget for next year. It should cost 5.16 million crowns annually.

The purchase of the recreational facility was agreed upon with the owners in 2009 by then-Minister for Human Rights Michael Kocáb. An educational center was supposed to be established in Hodonín near Kunštát. The Ministry of Education purchased the area for 20 million crowns. The total costs for acquisition and construction amounted to 98.56 million. By the end of last year, 85.67 million had been invested.

In 2011, the cabinet decided to establish a memorial. A year later, the pedagogical museum was put in charge of the matter. In 2013, a project emerged from a competition. Construction work was completed last July, and trial operations were planned for this July, with regular operations starting in August. The complex includes an information center with an exhibition hall and an amphitheater, a reconstructed guardhouse, and a prison building. The Ministry of Education had previously informed ČTK that the Ministry of Culture and its Museum of Romani Culture would have to agree on the opening date.