After decades of effort, a memorial to the victims of the Nazi genocide against the Roma and Sinti communities was inaugurated in the Czech Republic on Tuesday.
"We have to openly admit that it all took too long," Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said at the ceremony in Lety, some 70 kilometres south of Prague.
During the occupation by Nazi Germany in World War II, there was a work and concentration camp for Roma at the remote location in Lety.
After the war, a pig fattening operation was built on the site. Only after decades of protests by Roma representatives and human rights activists did the state acquire the farm property in 2018 in order to build the new memorial there.
In audiovisual recordings, witnesses tell of their memories of the persecution of Roma under the Nazi occupation.
A "Path of Remembrance" awaits visitors outside. The memorial will opens its doors to the public for the first time on May 12.
The aim is to preserve historical memory and stop the spread of disinformation about this genocide, said museum director Jana Horvathova.
From 1942 to 1943, more than 1,300 people were interned in Lety. According to historians, 327 Roma died there due to the horrific conditions. More than 500 were deported to the German Auschwitz extermination camp.
Of the total of around 6,500 Bohemian and Moravian Roma, less than a tenth survived the Porajmos, the genocide perpetrated against the European Roma.
After the war, many Slovak Roma immigrated. Today, according to estimates, around 250,000 Roma live in the Czech Republic again. According to experts, the minority suffers from discrimination and social exclusion.
