Miloslav Rozner already knows. There was no “non-existent pseudo-concentrator” in Lety u Písku, as he explained to his fellow SPD team members in 2017. There was a Roma concentration camp, part of the Nazi Holocaust machinery, which killed 90 percent of Czech Roma during World War II.
Rozner, this caricature of Okamura’s political militia, has paid for his knowledge on a six-month term. It’s a symbolic punishment, and it’s not certain if Rozner will take anything from it. His intellectual capacity is unlikely to allow that. And on Facebook, groups of Czech “patriots” will read that FREEDOM OF WORDS DOES NO LONGER APPLY HERE. Yes, friends, freedom of speech does not really apply to Holocaust denial for very good reasons. You should have found out earlier.
But in this case, it is not just a former member of the SPD. There is good reason to believe that Rozner does not present an extreme stance in the Lety case, but rather a mainstream opinion.
Just take a look at the period press. You will find, for example, the following statement: “It turns out that it is more complicated with the camp. That it was originally a labor camp for those who refused to work. Not just Roma. It’s not really a concentration camp in the sense that each of us subconsciously understands the word concentration camp and sees Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and these things. ”Some have certainly known the author. In 2005, Václav Klaus said in an interview with Lidové noviny. At that time, the President of the Czech Republic.
Of course, Klaus is not a primitive racist, he also admitted in the same interview: “Of course, a number of tragic things took place there. But as I understand it, the victims of the camp were primarily associated with the typhus epidemic and not with what is traditionally understood as a concentration camp victim. At least in what every child learns at school. Of course, the appropriate piety for this place must be chosen. “
Yes. It is true. But only half. In fact, many victims have died in the years as a result of the typhus epidemic. A total of 326 people died in Lety, of which 241 were children. But Václav Klaus had forgotten the main thing – and the public had mercifully forgotten about it with him, if she had ever heard of it at all: on August 1, 1942, Lety turned into a “gypsy” camp according to a strict racial key. Another 540 Roma perished in the Auschwitz gas chambers, where two special transports were sent for them from Lety. If the Václav Klaus Institute wants to refresh this history, this year’s 80th anniversary of the camp’s transformation could be an ideal opportunity.
But it wasn’t just Klaus. Miroslav Ransdorf, the then Communist MEP, also had a similarly insightful finding in the same year in 2005. “As a historian, I know he lies unbridled about the Years. There was never a real concentration camp there, “Ransdorf lied cheerfully at the time. He earned a criminal complaint from the former government commissioner for human rights, Petr Uhl. Unfortunately, the police found nothing wrong with Ransdorf’s words.
As 13 years later, on the statement of Rozner’s party boss Tomio Okamura, who claimed for a change that it was possible to move freely around the camp. He later apologized a little for his words, which was enough for the then parliamentary coalition YES – CSSD – SPD – KSCM to keep him in the position of Deputy Speaker of the Chamber.
To understand each other. The author does not call for punishment here for anyone who says outrageous insolence about the Years, although the descendants of the victims quite understandably see it differently. And no, Mr Babiš, we have not forgotten your praise of the camp as an effective way of teaching work habits.
The problem is more serious and, unfortunately, intensified repression will not solve it. The Roma Holocaust remains an almost completely unknown chapter in Czech history to this day. This is evidenced, for example, by the fact that no Czech president has arrived in Let since the visit of Václav Havel in 1995. And Miloš Zeman will probably not be able to do it this year either. Perhaps because in 2017 he protested against the removal of the infamous piglet on the camp site with an innocent argument: “What will happen in this area? Empty space, Mr. Soukup, nothing more. So you want to build empty space? ”
I am not Soukup, but even the empty area is more dignified as a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust than a large pig farm. Which Miloš Zeman knows. Only in 2017 did he decide that the image of the Roma, who were still reaching out, could once again become an effective part of his second presidential campaign.
We have all this behind us. The state bought the piglet in 2017, and according to optimistic – unfortunately probably too optimistic – scenarios, a truly dignified monument selected in an international competition should be erected in its place next year. By the way, not only because of the Roma victims, but also – and most importantly – because of us, the white majority.
The last, but probably the most difficult, step awaits us: to teach all this in our children’s schools. It will take some time. But perhaps it will be true that statements about a “non-existent pseudo-concentrator” are a real extreme worthy of majority contempt and not part of the popular wisdom supported by political leaders.
