The memorial to the Romani Holocaust will open in Blansko in 2016

photo: Museum of Romani Culture, collection of O. Kučera

Hodonín (Blanensko) - The memorial to the Romani Holocaust at the former camp in Hodonín near Kunštát is expected to open to the public in August 2016. Until then, visitors will only be able to view the area on exceptional occasions, such as the memorial event held today on the anniversary of the largest transport of Roma to Auschwitz. This was reported by the National Pedagogical Museum and Library of Jan Amos Comenius. The museum staff has been tasked with preparing the memorial.
      Work on the memorial began at the end of this spring. The first tangible result is the renovation of the only remaining original prison barrack. Today, participants in the memorial gathering were able to view a temporary one-day exhibition inside it. Further modifications to the terrain are still needed, as well as the construction of a visitor information center.
      A group of experts has already started working on the script for the future permanent exhibition. The camp barrack will host an exhibition evoking the harsh conditions in which the prisoners lived. The second part of the exhibition will provide detailed information about the entire tragic history of the Hodonín camp, where prisoners suffered under several regimes.
      The most tragic period in the camp's history was from 1942 to 1943, when it served as an internment camp for Moravian Roma. More than 200 of them died as a result of diseases and poor living conditions, while others ended up in Auschwitz. A similar facility was located in Lety near Písek.
      The camp later served as a hospital for Red Army soldiers. Subsequently, Germans unable to be deported due to age and health issues died there from typhus and other diseases. After the communists came to power, the area transformed into a forced labor camp for regime opponents for two years. Later, it began to be used for recreation until the state bought it out and decided to build a memorial.