The Holocaust Memorial to the Roma and Sinti in the Czech Republic will be opened on February 3, 2024 in Leta, Pisk, on the site of a former concentration camp where Roma and Sinti were imprisoned during World War II. After the war, the place housed an industrial pig farm.
At the press conference held on November 24 in Prague, representatives of the Museum of Roma Culture in the Czech Republic spoke about the plans for the opening and the importance of the memorial itself, who symbolically planted trees after the conference.
- Today we are planting trees that will be part of the memorial. This newly planted forest symbolizes the executed members of the Roma community. It is this forest that will symbolically represent them, and as it grows, we believe that coexistence between the majority community and the Roma minority will improve. That minority was forgotten and the genocide against them during the Second World War was absolutely removed from the history of our country - said Jana Horvathova, director of the Museum of Roma Culture in Prague.
Almost 14,000 trees will be planted. One for each victim. The mixed forest will be a place to reflect and honor the victims of the concentration camp for Roma and Sinti.
- It is extremely important to mark what happened in this place. The victims we remember today are often forgotten, and this chapter of our past remains in a kind of historical shadow - said the President of the House of Representatives, Markéta Pekarová Adamová.
