The Romani memorial in Lety near Písek will cost nearly 100 million CZK.

Lety - The Holocaust Memorial for Roma and Sinti in Bohemia, located in the area of the former pig farm in Lety near Písek, will be structurally completed within a year. The construction will be carried out by the company Protom Strakonice, which succeeded in the tender with a price of 98.6 million CZK. The memorial will be situated at the site of the Romani labor camp during World War II. The winner of the competition for the design of the indoor and outdoor exhibitions of the memorial should be announced in February. This was stated today by representatives of the Museum of Romani Culture, which manages the site. The museum hopes to open the memorial in 2024. Additional funding will be required for the exhibitions, with the costs for the indoor exhibition expected to be under ten million CZK. The German government has pledged financial support for the outdoor exhibition.

"The memorial must also educate and inform about what is part of Czech history in the 20th century. About what happened to the Roma and Sinti here, what its roots and connections were, and what happened afterwards. It is also necessary to stimulate discussion on the theme of human rights and improve mutual coexistence. I believe that the dreams of the Roma, which have long lived only in their minds, will be fulfilled," said Jana Horváthová, the director of the Museum of Romani Culture, regarding the construction of the memorial and its symbolism.

The museum received three offers for the construction of the visitor center and the reclamation of the provisional cemetery, with the bid price being 73.5 million CZK excluding tax. The construction of the memorial, which will take 345 days, will also be supported by Norwegian funds amounting to 26.5 million CZK. The visitor center could open in 2024. Protom had a net turnover of 230.1 million CZK and a profit after tax of 165,000 CZK in 2021, according to the annual report.

The pig farm began to be demolished last July, with the demolition completed in December. The remnants of one of the pig farm's halls will be part of the exhibition. The outdoor exhibition is intended to highlight the history of the site after the war, of which the pig farm was a part. The demolition cost 10.2 million CZK. This information comes from the contract register. The costs of the indoor exhibition will be under ten million CZK, while the outdoor costs will be significantly lower, Horváthová told ČTK. The German government has pledged money for the outdoor exhibition, she added.

"I consider today a very important day in the history of commemorating the victims of the Romani Holocaust. It was an event forgotten for decades. Today, the construction of the memorial for the Roma and Sinti was ceremonially inaugurated. Thus, a place will be created that will permanently remind us of what happens when we relax our efforts to defend the values of freedom and democracy," said Minister of Culture Martin Baxa (ODS) to ČTK and Czech Radio today.

During World War II, there was a labor camp for Roma at the site. In the 1970s, a pig farm was established there. The state purchased it in 2018 for 450 million from the company Agpi, which had 13,000 pigs in 13 halls there. According to historians, from August 1942 to May 1943, 1,308 Roma, men, women, and children passed through the camp at Lety, with 327 of them dying there and over 500 ending up in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Archaeologists discovered a few years ago that the largest part of the Romani camp in Lety was located precisely in the area of the former pig farm. The area occupies over 100,000 square meters. Near the emergency cemetery in Lety, which is about 300 meters from the camp site, a memorial was established in 1995, and the site became a cultural monument in 1998.

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