In the Czech Republic, hundreds of Roma died in a concentration camp during World War II. In the 1970s, a pig farm with a large production capacity was built on the site. Its demolition began on Friday.
22:23•Updated 22:24
In the Czech Republic, the demolition of a pig farm, which was located on the same site as a Romani concentration camp during the Second World War, has begun.
The demolitions end a decades-long dispute between the owners of the pig farm, the Czech government and Roma activists, says (you switch to another service) British broadcasting company BBC.
An estimated 1,309 Roma were held as prisoners in the concentration camp located in the municipality of Lety in South Bohemia.
The camp was originally established by the Czech authorities in 1939, just weeks before the Nazi occupation. Lety first functioned as a labor camp, but in 1942 the Nazis turned it into a Roma concentration camp.
The camp was closed in 1943 due to a typhoid epidemic raging there. As a result of ill-treatment, hunger and disease, more than 300 Roma had already died in Lety, most of them children. The rest of the prisoners were taken to Nazi extermination camps such as Auschwitz.
Instead of German SS troops, Czech personnel worked in Lety. None of them were convicted after the war.
A painful history fought for decades
The pig farm built in the 1970s became a subject of controversy as early as 1995, when Roma activists moved a memorial about the genocide near the pig farm.
A few years later, two Czech government ministers stated that the pig farm should be demolished and a memorial should be erected in honor of the victims. The company that owned the pig farm also promised to move its farm elsewhere for compensation.
However, the matter did not proceed smoothly, as several different governments blocked the demolition of the farm.
Over the years, the Czech Republic received reprimands for the pig farm from, among others, human rights observers, the European Parliament in 2005, and the UN Human Rights Committee in 2016.
In 2018, the Czech government finally bought the space and donated it to the Museum of Romani Culture, which decided to demolish the piggery and erected a memorial on the site.
Current Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Andrej Babiš had still in 2017 denied that there had ever been a concentration camp in Lety. According to him, it was just a labor camp.
It is estimated that hundreds of thousands or even more than a million Roma died in the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Nazis during the Second World War. The Roma use the term Porajmos for genocide.
In the Czech Republic, almost all Roma who lived in the regions of Bohemia and Moravia were exterminated.
The Roma are the largest ethnic minority in Europe, and an estimated six million of them live in the EU. Among other things, the European Parliament by (you switch to another service) Roma still face a lot of discrimination and suffer from disadvantage.