Recognition of the Roma Genocide

 Recognition, official texts

In the Czech Republic, the Holocaust was recognized and the term used is “Roma Holocaust” or “Holocaust of the Roma” or “Genocide of the Roma”; the term “Porrajmos” is also used by some Roma groups and organisations.

 Data (camps locations, Remembrance places, measures etc.)

Remembrance places:

Lety u Písku (Lety near Písek) (in German, Lettig)
A monument dedicated to the memory of victims from the so called “Gypsy Camp” (1942-43) in form of several stones with inscriptions. It was unveiled on the 13th of May 1995 by initiative of the Museum of Romani Culture; President Václav Havel gave a speech on that occasion: "If we do not face up to racist evil at the moment of its first, apparently innocent, manifestations, it will grow into a phenomenon that is truly dangerous, serious, and threatening to all of society, and we risk not being able to face up to that evil later on - or only being able to face up to it at the cost of more human victims... Even today, we sometimes hear people calling 'Gypsies to the gas chambers'. Even today, we can observe indifference to these calls, quiet support for those who are yelling them, cowardly spectators, the renewal of divisions between people according to their ethnic origin. All of this must be faced up to again and again, because it is the tried-and-true territory of racism," Havel said.

Mirovice
A memorial plate at the cemetery is to commemorate buried victims from the so called “Gypsy Camp” in Lety. It was unveiled by the initiative of the Committee for the compensation of Romani Holocaust victims.
 

Uherčice
A memorial plate at the cemetery is to commemorate the deported Roma from this village to Auschwitz-Birkenau on the 7th of March 1943. Unveiled on the 30th of May 2000 by initiative of the municipality.
 

Hodonín u Kunštátu (Hodonín near Kunštát) (in German, Göding)
A monument dedicated to the memory of victims from so called “Gypsy Camp” (1942-43). Unveiled on the 17th of August 1997 by initiative of the Museum of Romani Culture.
 

Černovice
Memorial plate at the cemetery is to commemorate buried victims from the so called “Gypsy Camp” in Hodonín. Unveiled on the 16th of May 1998 by initiative of the Museum of Romani Culture.
 

Bohusudov
A memorial monument is to commemorate the deported Roma from this village to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Unveiled on the 29th of September 1985 by initiative of the local Union of the Anti-Fascist Warriors from the town Telč.
 

Facts and figures.

Historical background:
The First Tschecoslovak Republic (1918-1939) made an attempt at resolving "the Gypsy question" in 1927 by issuing the “Law on Wandering Gypsies”. In practice this meant that they all had to apply for identification and for permission to stay the night. The aim was to "civilize" their way of life, but the law so restricted and deprived the Roma of their civil liberties, that it became an expression of the slanderous, defamatory, and vilifying attitude of society at the time towards the ethnic group as a whole.
A sizable number of Roma settled in the Czech Lands or passed through in a semi-migratory way of life. The settlers were mostly bricklayers, tinkers, blacksmiths, trough-makers, road-menders, musicians, and so on, or whatever they received permission from the community to do.
Before WWI, nearly all Roma were illiterate and, faced with the discrimination they felt in the "gadje" society, had no motivation to educate themselves, as even with an education they would have difficulty finding a place in society.
The first exceptional anti-Roma measure in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was the edict of the Ministry of the Interior in 1939, which ordered all Roma to settle down and give up their migratory way of life. Anyone not complying with this edict could be put in to work camps - in Bohemia the camp was in Lety, in Moravia it was Hodonín. With the Decree on the Preventive Fight against Criminality (1942), the Government introduced a police detention along the German Reich model, which took place in detention camps at Lety, Hodonín, Prague-Ruzyne and in Pardubice, or in the concentration camp at Auschwitz I.
According to the census of 2 August 1942, more than 6,500 Roma from the Protectorate were rounded up, of which the smaller part were sent off to the newly opened “Gypsy Camps”, until then work camps, in Lety and Hodonín.
The Lety camp was intended for the concentration of "anti-social" Roma from Bohemia, and 1,256 prisoners passed through it, including 36 children who were born there to imprisoned mothers. Debilitating work, consistent hunger, excessive crowding in insect-infested barracks, as well as the precarious state of health of the internees - it all contributed to their sickness and death. Such a death claimed the lives of 326 men, women and children. Three transports were arranged for the other prisoners, who didn't survive the war: the first left on 3 December 1942 for the first Auschwitz concentration camp and consisted of 16 men and 78 women in total, the second headed for the “Gypsy Camp” at Auschwitz-Birkenau on 11 March 1943 and included 16 women and four men hospitalized before the departure in Písek and Strakonice hospitals, and in the third group, on 7 April 1943, the mass of prisoners was deported, which included 215 men and boys and 205 women and girls.
The Hodonín camp was meant for the internment of "anti-social" Moravian Roma and in it were recorded 1,396 prisoners, including 34 children born there. Of this number, 207 prisoners died and 855 of them were sent to Auschwitz. The first shipment of 45 men and 30 women was set up for 7 December 1942 and its destination was Auschwitz. The second two groups ended up at the “Gypsy Camp” at Auschwitz-Birkenau; one left on the 22nd August 1943 with 749 prisoners of both sexes and and all age groups and the second left on the 28th of January 1944 with 26 adults and 5 children who had been imprisoned in a police jail in Brno after the closing of the Hodonín camp.
The commandant of the “Gypsy Camp” in Lety was Captain J. Janovsky, the commandant of the camp in Hodonín was S. Blahynka, and both camps were run solely by Czech personnel and none of them were punished after 1945.
The majority of Roma, who had a permanent residence and could demonstrate steady work, remained free after the implemented census for the time being. Their deportation came about by two edicts issued at the turn of 1942-3 by the Reich Ministry of the Interior.
In March 1943, a substantial part of the Roma were sent away, first from Moravia (1,038 people on 7 March), then from Bohemia (642 people on 11 March), and finally from both areas at once (1,042 people on the 19th of March). The second stage of deportation was made up of shipments in May (853 people total from Bohemia and Moravia on 7 May, of which 420 were from the liquidation of the Lety camp), August (767 people total from Moravia, of which 749 came from the liquidation of the Hodonín camp), and October (93 people from Bohemia and Moravia on 19 October). The final Roma were deported from the Protectorate either in smaller shipments (the 31 prisoners remaining from the Hodonín camp on 28 January 1944), or individually.
In the files of the “Gypsy Camp” at Auschwitz-Birkenau were written the names of 4,493 Roma from the Protectorate. Of all of them, the only ones with a hope of surviving were those transferred to work at other concentration camps, such as Auschwitz I, Natzweiler, Flossenbürg, Buchenwald, and Ravensbrück, from where they were then distributed to other concentration camps, especially in Dora, Dachau, Neuengamme, Bergen-Belsen, Mathausen and so on.
After the liberation in 1945, only 583 Roma men and women returned to their homes. The original Roma population in the Czech lands was thus almost annihilated during the period of the Nazi occupation. A similar fate befell the Roma in the detached Sudetenland.

The so called “Gypsy Camps” in Lety and Hodonín – overview in numbers:

Lety

• Total of imprisoned individuals: 1,309 people.
• Died in the camp: 326 individuals;
• Children born in the camp / Survived: 36/3? children.
• Successful escapes: 60.
• People released from the camp: 313 people.
• Number of Roma transported to the “Gypsy Camp“ in Auschwitz II (Birkenau) with the mass transport from 4 May 1943: 420 individuals.
• Total number of Roma transported to Auschwitz from the camp: 533 individuals.
• Camp officially closed on: 9 August 1943

Hodonín

• Total of imprisoned individuals: 1,396 people.
• Died in the camp: 207 individuals.
• Children born in the camp / Survived: 34/1 children.
• Successful escapes: 53.
• People released from the camp: 262 people.
• Number of Roma transported to the “Gypsy Camp“ in Auschwitz II (Birkenau) with the mass transport from 21 August 1943: 748 individuals.
• Total number of Roma transported to Auschwitz from the camp: 849 individuals.
• Camp officially closed on: 1 December 1943.       

 Specialised institution, commission, research centre etc., dealing with this issue

There is a specialised institution centre dealing with the issue of the Genocide of the Roma or Samudaripen: "Muzeum romské kultury" (Museum of Romani Culture) in Brno. There is also the organization "Výbor pro odškodnění romského holocaustu" (The Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust), which is an association representing the interests of surviving Roma Holocaust victims and relatives of victims in the Czech Republic.

Museum of Romani Culture, state organisation
Bratislavská 67
602 00 Brno
Telephone: +420 545 571 798
E-mail: [email protected]

Since the Museum of Romani Culture was established in the early nineties, the historical department of the museum is documenting and researching the Genocide of the Roma, especially in the territory of the former Czechoslovakia. In the museum there are a lot of audio and video testimonies of Roma survivors: about 200 hours of video and about 300 hours of audio testimonies. The museum also helped Roma survivors with the compensations in the last years - and these recordings were also used in many cases as a testimony in the compensation process. The Historical Department of the museum is researching, publishing about the Genocide of the Roma and provides lectures about this topic for elementary schools, high schools, university students and for the wide public. In 2007 the museum opened for public the part of the permanent exhibition "The Story of the Roma" dedicated to the Nazi Genocide of the Roma, and this part is the first and only exhibition of its kind in the Czech Republic. The entire permanent exhibition is unique in its focus on the history of the Genocide of the Roma worldwide. The construction up to this time has been covered by the Czech Government, the Česko-německý fond budoucnosti (Czech-German Fund for the Future) and by the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (ITF). The exhibition “Romengro murdaripen - The Holocaust” is located in the first floor of the museum (Room no 4) and it covers an area of 351 square meters. This exhibition is a reminder of the Genocide of the Roma and a place for education of the broadest public. It is also intended as a place of reverence to honour the victims. This permanent exhibition also serves as a basis for educational events in the Museum of Romani Culture, a long-term output in the shape of an exhibition and educational activities. Since 2000 the museum is cooperating with the Ministry of Education, the Terezín Memorial and the Jewish Museum in Prague on the seminars for educators from the elementary and high schools called “How to teach the Holocaust.”

In 2011, the Museum of Roma Culture produced a traveling exhibition "Genocide of the Roma during the Second World War". The exhibition consists of photographs accompanied by texts about the genocide of the Roma. It starts with the situation in Germany in 1933 and describes the process that was unleashed against the "gypsy race" there and later implemented in all of the territories annexed to Nazi Germany. Special attention is paid to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Slovak state. Other topics include the inclusion of Romani people in the anti-Nazi resistance and the fate of Romani property after Romani people were transported to the concentration camps. A 30-minute film includes interviews with Romani people who survived the concentration camps and the Second World War.

The Memorial to the holocaust of the Roma and Sinti

Bratislavská 67

602 00 Brno

Mgr. Luděk Strašák, Ph. D.
head of memorials
[email protected]
+420 774 855 225

Mgr. Radovan Krhovský
administrator of the memorial
[email protected]
+420 775 403 155

History of the so-called Gypsy camp in Hodonín u Kunštátu

The Protectorate so-called Gypsy camp was opened in Hodonín u Kunštátu on August 2, 1942. The establishment of the camp with the official designation Zigeunerlager II (Zigeunerlager I was opened in Lety u Písku) was preceded by the July 1942 directive “Countering the Gypsy Crime” (which was a copy of the Reich model valid in Nazi Germany from 1938) according to which a total of 6,500 persons defined as “gypsies and gypsy biracial” were accounted for in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Some of the Roma and Sinti and with them some of their families, considered to be “living the Gypsy way” were interned in the newly opened so-called Gypsy camps from the beginning of August 1942.

Punitive labor camp and collection camp. The so-called gypsy camp in Hodonín u Kunštátu was established at the site of the former punitive labor camp (opened on August 10, 1940) and collection camp (from January 1, 1942).

The punitive labor and collection camp served to implement a distorted social policy for the temporary detention of healthy adult men considered to be “working with disgust” or “asocial” and to use their labor force. Out of the total of 1032 inmates who went through the disciplinary labor and collection camp, 167 (or 16%) of them were marked with the letter C, ie “gypsies” in the camp evidence.

Výbor pro odškodnění romského holocaust (The Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust)
Všehrdova 11
118 00 Prague 1
Telephone: +420 257 327 871

The Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust is an association representing the interests of surviving Roma Holocaust victims and relatives of victims in the Czech Republic. Established in 1998, and since then, among other things, has been striving to make the former concentration camps at Lety and Hodonín places of reverence. They would like these sites to become dignified memorials to the suffering of the Roma people during the Protectorate. Unlike other places, such as the concentration camps at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Terezín (in German, Theresienstadt), the sites at Lety and Hodonín are used for purposes which are a gross contradiction of their unquestionable significance not only for Roma in the Czech Republic, but for every citizen of Czech Republic, as places of commemoration and reminders of the dangers of past mistakes.