An annual memorial ceremony to commemorate Czech victims of the Roma and Sinti Holocaust was held at the site of a WWII concentration camp for Roma at Lety in South Bohemia on Sunday. Czech President Petr Pavel was among those who spoke at the solemn event.
“The Lety memorial is a reminder of crimes against those imprisoned at this concentration camp, where more than 1,300 men, women and children lost their freedom, human dignity and in many cases also their lives,” he said.
The current, stopgap memorial at Lety was unveiled by President Václav Havel in 1995 – and until this weekend he was the only Czech head of state to have attended the site’s annual ceremony.
Gwendolyn Albert, who works with the Roma affairs website Romea and took part in Sunday’s edition, said the president’s presence “elevated the annual event in the way that only a president can.”
Senate speaker Miloš Vystrčil, who was also in attendance, said next year’s opening of the new memorial ought to be an opportunity to improve relations between the majority society and the Roma.
Sunday’s ceremony marked the 80th anniversary of the transport of 420 Roma from Lety to the Auschwitz extermination camp.