The pig farm in Lety, which stood at the site of the Romani concentration camp, has been demolished

Lety - In Lety near Písek, the demolition of the former pig farm has been completed in the places where a concentration camp for Roma existed during World War II. The company is now securing two remnants of the former pig farm hall, which will be part of the exhibition. The Museum of Romani Culture aims to open a visitor center there in the second half of 2023 or at the beginning of 2024. Three bids were received for the construction of the center, and the museum has not yet selected a winner. The museum estimated the price at 73.5 million CZK excluding VAT. This was communicated to ČTK by the spokesperson of the Museum of Romani Culture, Karolina Spielmannová.

The pig farm began to be demolished at the end of July. "The area of the former pig farm has been demolished. The pig farm was used for large-scale pig farming for many years and contained a significant amount of hazardous material. Therefore, ensuring the ecological disposal of waste materials was challenging, which is why the demolition deadline was also postponed," said Spielmannová. The demolition took place in close proximity to the original camp, so the work had to be done carefully, according to the spokesperson.

They are still waiting for the removal of slurry, which is planned for the spring months. Independently of this, the area will be ready for construction by January 15. A Holocaust Memorial for Roma and Sinti in the Czech Republic will be built at the site for more than 100 million crowns. Its first part will be a visitor center, stated the Museum of Romani Culture, which is responsible for the site. The remains of two halls of the pig farm will be part of the exhibition of the new memorial.

The museum is now evaluating three bids it received in the tender for the construction of the visitor center and the reclamation of the provisional burial site. The bid price was 73.5 million CZK excluding tax.

The state originally estimated the costs of the pig farm demolition at 110 million crowns, which were allocated. However, the demolition ultimately cost only ten million. The cost of demolition excluding tax is 8.5 million crowns, with VAT it amounts to 10.2 million CZK. This information comes from the contract register. Over 90 million, which was managed to be saved, will be used by the state for building memorials, said Minister of Culture Martin Baxa (ODS) to ČTK in July.

The construction of the memorial will take several years. In mid-December, the museum announced a contract for the construction of a permanent exhibition. "At this moment, we are looking for a construction contractor; the project documentation is complete, as is the tender documentation for the internal and external exhibitions," Spielmannová stated. According to preliminary estimates, the construction of the memorial will cost 100 million CZK including VAT. Norwegian funds will also contribute to the construction.

During World War II, there was a concentration 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 Agpi, which had 13,000 pigs in 13 halls. According to historians, from August 1942 to May 1943, 1,308 Roma, men, women, and children passed through the camp in Lety, 327 of whom died there, and over 500 ended up in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Archaeologists discovered three years ago that the largest part of the concentration camp for Roma in Lety was located precisely in the area of the former pig farm. The area covers over 100,000 square meters.