Date
May 13, 2018
The commemoration ceremony for the victims of Nazism is being held with the kind support of the Czech Culture Ministry and the Foundation for Holocaust Victims on Sunday, 13 May 2018 at 12:00 at the remembrance site of the Lety Memorial.
On 17 December 1938, the pro-Government daily Venkov (“Countryside”) published the following opinion:
“Something must happen here in the very near future. In other countries there are concentration camps for political trangressors. We will not take such measures. However, it would be good to build concentration camps for gypsies, wanderers and professional beggars who are young and healthy. In this case notions of humanity are not to be applied, because that would be too biased. (…) If the Government were to quickly intervene in this matter it would be to the benefit of the citizenry and public morale.”
Please allow the relatives of the victims and survivors of Nazism to invite you to their traditional commemorative ceremony:
Program
12:00 Czech national anthem, followed by the hymn of the Romani prisoners of the Nazi concentration camps
12:10 Welcoming of participants
12:15 Laying of floral offerings at the memorial 13:10 Spiritual reflection
13:25 Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust Award for Humanity, given to those figures who advocated on behalf of the Czech Government for making the site of the former concentration camp at Lety u Písku a more dignified place of remembrance.
13:45 Cultural program performed by Carlos Vlasák (Sinto) 13:55 Speeches
14:40 Closing of the official part of the ceremony, tour of the alterations to the former concentration camp site, optional visit to the cemetery in Mirovice (2 km) to lay flowers at the mass grave of the child victims of the camp.
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Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
As we do every year, the relatives of the victims and survivors of the Nazi concentration camps will gather this year at the site of the Lety u Písku Cultural Monument together with leading figures from culture and politics and with the ambassadors of EU and other countries to honor the victims of Nazism and to send a mesage to all neo-Nazis, racists and xenophobes that the opinions they are publicly disseminating in our country are not supported.
As you all are certainly aware by now, the former Government of Prime Minister Sobotka decided last year to remove the pig farm from the site of the former concentration camp at Lety u Písku. We appreciate this statesmanlike act all the more because it was undertaken during an election. The Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust in the Czech Republic has therefore decided to give an award for their display of humanity to those members of the former cabinet who were responsible, to a decisive degree, for the redress now underway at Lety.
In the years to come, on the occasion of this commemoration at the remembrance site of the former concentration camp at Lety the Committee will give its Award for Humanity to figures whose activity has, in a significant way, made the relationships between Czechs and Romani people more humane.
From the municipality of Lety to the burial site of the victims there is a hiking trail with signage that is 1.5 kilometers long and is the same route that the Romani families, assisted by the Police of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, used to take when coming to the Lety concentration camp. There are restrooms at the remembrance site.
For those attending the ceremony we organize a round-trip, free charter bus from Prague to Lety and back. The charter bus will be parked as it is every year in front of the main gate to the Praha-Florenc bus station, beneath the overpass, near the final stop for municipal bus no. 133. It will be marked with a sign reading “Lety”. The bus will depart at 9:45 AM sharp!!!
Those interested in reserving a place on the bus should write to the e-mail address below or send an SMS to the mobile phone number.
Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust in the Czech Republic
Výbor pro odškodnění romského holocaustu v ČR, z.s.
Barákova 1002, 508 01 Hořice, Czech Republic
E-mail: ruzicka.vporh@seznam.cz,
Mob.: +420 603 247 617
Hořice, Czech Republic, 10.4.2018