The documentary film will explore the history of the camp and pig farm in Lety

Prague - After more than a year of work, the feature-length documentary film titled Lety will premiere in Prague on Wednesday, October 23. Roma creators capture in the film the efforts of many actors to remove the pig farm in Lety near Písek and the ongoing debate about the history of this place, where a concentration camp for Roma once stood. After the film screening at the Pilotů cinema, there will be a discussion with its creators.

The documentary about the site associated with the Roma Holocaust has been prepared by a team from the organization Romea since June 2018. Reportage footage from the archive supplemented by recent footage capturing events from the past two years illustrates the testimonies of survivors and interviews with actors involved in post-revolutionary efforts to remove the pig farm. Part of the work on the documentary also included searching for unresolved facts that influenced the process of repurchase.

The Czech government reached an agreement and acquired the pig farm located at the site of the former camp after two decades of debate in 2017. Roma organizations and international human rights institutions criticized the Czech Republic for the existence of the pig farm at the site of the former concentration camp for Roma. The state paid 450 million crowns for the pig farm. The demolition of buildings and the construction of a memorial site will cost an additional approximately 120 million crowns.

"We do not hide that through the film we convey an opinion that we have developed over the years since 2003 when we documented events related to Lety," said Zdeněk Ryšavý, the director of the organization Romea, regarding the film. "A plethora of politicians have appeared at memorial events, yet their promises for a dignified commemoration of the site ultimately came to nothing. When it was beginning to lead to the purchase of the pig farm and the determination of the amount, we decided to show the public the story in a broader context," added one of the film's creators, František Bikár, the main coordinator and cameraman of Romea TV.

The main character of the documentary is Roma activist Čeněk Růžička, who has dedicated a large part of his life to the fight for the removal of the pig farm. His mother was imprisoned in the camp, where she lost her firstborn son in Lety.

According to historians, from August 1942 to May 1943, 1,308 Roma, men, women, and children, passed through the camp in Lety, of whom 327 died there and over five hundred ended up in Auschwitz. Approximately 600 Roma prisoners returned from concentration camps after the war. According to experts' estimates, the Nazis exterminated 90 percent of Czech and Moravian Roma.

The camp stood at the site where a pig farm was established in the 1970s. After the pig farming company left, an archaeological survey recently concluded at the site, which found that the largest part of the Roma camp was located precisely within the area of the former pig farm. Archaeologists also found individual graves near the camp at the site of the cultural monument Lety.

Today, the area is managed by the Museum of Roma Culture, which plans to build a memorial to the Roma Holocaust at the site. A competition for its design was announced a few days ago, with the winner expected to be announced in May next year. The results of the competition will pave the way for the demolition of the existing pig farm. The museum aims to open the memorial in 2023.