"Footprints of the silent past" - Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia

FOOTPRINTS OF THE SILENT PAST Alex Yeloyeva Architecture Design 9 Wertig/Kopecky studio

Brief of the semester

“The Government of the Czech Republic approved the intention to purchase a large pig feed facility in Lety u Písku, a place where one of the two “Gypsy camps” was located from August 1942 to August 1943. This step enabled the Museum of Romani Culture to build a new memorial that links the existing Lety Cultural Heritage Memorial with the site of the former camp, thus creating a comprehensive concept of dignified honor to the Roma Holocaust victims.

“Lety u Písku. Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia” should inform not only about the history of the Holocaust to the Roma and Sinti“, but also draw nearer the place where its fate illustrates how the coexistence of the Roma and the majority society was and is evolving. I firmly believe that it will map the roots of hate and discrimination, arouse interest in human rights, but also facilitate mutual understanding between the Roma and non-Roma population. [PhDr. Lubomír Zaorálek Minister of Culture] On the occasion of the release of Lety competition ARCHIP students received a brief to design a memorial for the Roma people. The memorial should trace tragic events which has happened in the past and be a permanent reminder for everybody so nothing like that would never happen again.

Semester brief included doing thorough analysis of the site and study of the historical background and designing a complex, which would in itself have: visitor center with educational facilities; interior/exterior exhibition, which could be open to interpretation and include space for the history of camp/site; and ceremonial space for memories of the dead, silent, meditation, thinking, reflection, walking and possibility of organization of public event. All of the elements should be connected between each other and have clear circulation and logical path, which would relate to the context. Existing memorial by Zdenek Hula should preserved and access to the grave excavations should be provided. The decision of what do with the remains of pig farms was left to the students.

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Content

1. Site analysis -location

4

-description

5

-historical background

6

-site visit

10

-photo-documentation

11

12

-case study

2. Concept

15

3. Project parts

-visitor center

16

-memento and exhibition halls

20

-ceremonial space

24

-contemplation space

30

4. The whole site: -site plan

34

-sections

35

-axonometry

36

37

-serial vision

5. Project progress -sketches

38

-models

41

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Site location

Lety

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Site description

Our site is located in the Czech Republic in south west Bohemia to the east from Lety village and west from Vltava river. Prisoners arrived to the camp by train going from Prague Bubny train station to Mirovice town and then they walked following the path showed on satellite image on the left page and arrived to the camp from the northern side, where administration center of the camp used to be.

Terrain of the site has slightly descending slope, bordered by woods from two sides, meadows, groves, at the bottom of the slope there is a pond. The undulating blue-green contours roughly cut by the rectangle of a concrete pig farm. In its upper part and its surroundings, it is possible to anticipate other scars of geometric shapes that are almost invisible today – the ground plan of the former concentration camp and its buildings. It was not just time and nature that contributed to the gradual wiping of its tracks in the landscape and in collective memory. Only in past years we got to know where camp used to be from the recent archaeological research.

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Historical background

1935 The Nuremberg Laws aiming at “protecting and purifying the German race” were the basis of racial policy. From 1935 the Sinti and the Roma were forced to concentrate in local internment camps in cities in Germany.

March 2, 1939 the Czech-Slovak Government Decree No. 72 on disciplinary labour camps for men over the age of 18, who could not prove that they were making a proper living, was adopted. On October 17, 1939, free movement of “gypsies” was banned with an immediate effect and their concentration in local detention camps continued. Most Roma actually settled down, took up work, their children began going to school or to special newly established gypsy classes.

1933 a totalitarian Nazi government, led by Adolf Hitler, comes to power in Germany.

Hitler soon began to execute his perverted racial policy, which focused primarily on the Jewish and Roma population.

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March 9, 1942 A regulation on the prevention of crime entered into force in the Protectorate. It affected the so-called asocial – “gypsies and people with gypsy way of life” were explicitly mentioned for the first time. On the territory of the Protectorate, preventive police custody was carried out in the collection camps, which were originally the disciplinary labour camps.

August 8, 1940 From 1936 Lety disciplinary some Sinti and Roma were transported from labour camp was founded.

Germany to the concentration camps as part of the so called transfers of asocials, those who threatened the society with “asocial behavior” or could commit a crime in the future.

In August 1942 the collection camp was transformed into a gypsy camp in Lety near Písek. Also, the prisoners´ mix changed – there were people whom the Protectorate authorities considered to be gypsies, i.e. mainly Czech Roma.

They were held in inhumane conditions and most of them deceased here or later in other concentration camps.

From October 10, 1942 “racially biological” identity cards were to be issued.

The only proof of the identity of the “gypsies” was to be solely a gypsy identity card. The list of registered “gypsies and gypsy half-breeds” of about 6,500 people was divided into two groups.

Winter 1942 an epidemy of abdominal and spotted typhoid broke out in the camp and it was placed under quarantine. Prior to the outbreak, the bodies of deceased prisoners were barried at the cemetrty mearby Mirovice, but as of 16 January 1943 deceased were interred in mass graves on the forest plot near the camp and 326 people who died in Lety, 120 were barried in this mass grave

March and April 1943 420 of prisoners were forcibly transported to the Auswitz concetration and extremination camp.

Most of them never returned

December 1942 The final stage of the so-called “gypsy question“. By this the Reich SS leader Heinrich Himmler ordered the collection of “gypsies and gypsy half-breeds” from Germany and all occupied or annexed territories to Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp. The first transport from Lety to extermination camp Auschwitz II (Birkenau) took place on 4 December 1942

8 August 1943 As a result of the typhus epidemic and emptying of the camp during the summer of 1943, all wooden buildings were burned and the area disinfected with chlorine lime. The camp was officially liquidated on 8 August 1943

2nd August 1944, deported from Lety to Auswitz people were executed. Over 22,000 Roma men, women and children passed through Auswitz, with nearly 20,000 not surviving.

Historical background

From the time lime on the left you can see major events which happened to the Roma people which were connected to the Lety camp , with red font are highlighted the ones which influenced concept and curtain design decisions. Lety concentration camp even being a place with no return for its prisoners, has been the final destination, but rather a waiting point. People which have passed though Lety camp had been sent on different life paths: some passed away during typhoid epidemy and barried in the camp, others were sent to Hodonin and Auschwitz after Lety camp has been closed and only a few managed to survive. Even though Lety camp was razed to the ground in summer 1943, the sufferning of Roma community didn’t end then. The events which has happened at this location has left unforgettable scar. It is also important to understand that it is not just what has been done in the time concetration camp has been working, but also what happened afterworlds. Soviet government tried to erase the memory of the camp existence and placing pig farm in 70s right next to the camps footprints was one of the attempts to do it. And exactly this action and the long time it took Roma community to fight for this ground higlights all the disrepect and dishoner Roma’s has experience and still do.

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Historical background

The results of surface survey, aerial scanning (LiDAR) and historic aerial photographs analysis projected onto a contemporary orthophoto map: A – camp area, B – camp cemetery violet – identified surface remains of graves, yellow – quarry pits, green – field boundaries, orange – old roads (sunken ways), blue – recent field fortifications

Axonometric view of the Lety camp in 1943: A – administrative building, B – earlier part of the camp, C - extension built in 1942.

Drawing of the pig farms with trace all of the camps facilities on it. In May 1995, President Václav Havel unveiled the Memorial to the victims.

Only in 2018, after twenty years of appeals from individuals and international organizations, the Czech state bought the pig farm to give it to the Museum of Romani Culture.

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Historical background

Prisoners in the courtyard in front of northern sanitary premises located in the notthen row of small prisoner barracks

Eastern on the front and western row on the back of small wooden prisoners’ houses with the big barracks for kids in the center

Northern and western row of small prisoners’ barracks resting on brick footings lined with a drainage ditch.

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Site visit analysis

4 3 2

5

6

1

Romas path from Mirovice to Lety camp Access roads Pedestrian paths

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Fence Natural barrier

Photo documentation

1. Memorial by Zdenek Hula

2. Pig farms from North

3. Pedestrian path in forest

4. Pedestrian crossing in forest

5. Concetration camp placement from West

6. View to fields from pig farms

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Holocaust Memorial of the Roma and Sinti in Hodonín u Kunštát

On 20 August the Museum of Romani Culture opened the Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti at Hodonín u Kunštátu in the Blansko district of Moravia, where a so-called “Gypsy Camp” was in operation during the Second World War. The opening involved a commemorative gathering to honor the memory of the victims. The memorial currently offers three exhibitions housed in the former barracks for guards and for prisoners. One is about genocide, one is about student work on the subject of the Holocaust, and one shows the archaeological discoveries at Lety. Currently, the exhibition at Hodonín features personal items that belonged to the Lety prisoners as well as building materials from the camp’s structures that have survived, which will be later moved to the Lety memorial.

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The Memorial to the Sinty and Roma Victims, Berlin

The monument is dedicated to the memory of the 220,000 – 500,000 people murdered in the Porajmos – the Nazi genocide of the European Sinti and Roma peoples. It was designed by Dani Karavan and was officially opened on 24 October 2012 The memorial was designed by the Israeli artist Dani Karavan and consists of a dark, circular pool of water at the center of which there is a triangular stone. The triangular shape of the stone is in reference to the badges that had to be worn by concentration camp prisoners. The stone is retractable and a fresh flower is placed upon it daily. In bronze letters around the edge of the pool is the poem ‘Auschwitz’ by Roma poet Santino Spinelli, although the monument commemorates all Roma and Sinty murdered during the Porajmo.

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Mission and concept

Mission:

Concept:

The Memorial is, and must continue to be, a place of honor to the memory of the victims of the Lety camp, the victims of Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti, a place of reverence and silent contemplation, an authentic place of remembrance for suffering.

As the camp was burned and its traces were erased, main concept of the project is to bring back its existence to visitor of memorial through series of experiences connected to what happened at the location and generally to Roman population.

By leaving outside physical condition of the side In an authentic place of suffering, the Memorial untouched and going underground in the footprints will provide information, to explain, and provide of the camp the memorial highlights the fact that information on the history of the place and truth was hidden for such a long time In other Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti to straighten out words, creating scars in the ground, which would the untruths and myths. stay as a permanent reminder about what has been done to the Roma people.

The Lety Memorial will educate and lead generally Project consist of the several parts, each of against violence, educate towards democracy, which carries different function and relates to the explain the roots of hate and discrimination in the different experience which prisoners went through place of suffering / Holocaust. in the camp.

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Visitor center

1:2000

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Visitor center

Visitors enter the parking lot by private transportation or public charts from near by settlements (Mirovice, Pribram, Pisek) from the North - the same entrance as prisoners entered. When they left their car, they’ll reach the site by going around forest to the open fields and as they firstly approach the site, there would be visible only open space and some footprint in the ground. This would highlight the erasment of the memory which happen before. Sloping down path would lead them in the visitor center, where they would get information about the memorial and leave their personal belonging in case its needed.

Visitor center, also, includes educational space (for up to 40 people) with flexible amenities, office for (4-5) workers of the memorial and restrooms.

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Visitor center

A

A’

B

B’

1:200

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Visitor center

section AA’ - scale 1:200

section BB’ - scale 1:200

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Memento and exhibition halls

1:2000

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Memento and exhibition halls

By walking up the ramp from visitor center people will follow into the tranches which will lie in the footprint of small barracks, where prisoners lived. Tranches will have the same width as the houses and be filled with the granite raw rocks making the passage just wide enough to pass. These space is meant to be discomforting and stand for the congestion in which prisoners lived in. Depth of the tranches will also be same as was height of the barracks - framing the view to the outside/freedom and showing the disability to get out.

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Memento and exhibition halls

C’ C

1:300

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Memento and exhibition halls

By the underground passages from the tranches visitor can access two exhibition hall: one (on the right) would have visual materials and finding from excavations will have water on the floor and just movable platforms limiting visitors ability to choose path and the second hall will have white small outside and dark inside(1/2 person) cubes with audio and video materials. Both spaces will filled with artificial fog, creating visibility of only one meter and disconnecting people visually. These will represent loss of identity and disconnection which prisoners went through in Lety. Both halls are in the footprint of the barracks, which stood in the center of the courtyard.

section CC’ - scale 1:200

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Ceremonial space

E

E’

1:2000

24

Ceremonial space

To fully understand the story of people which went through Lety camp it is important to remember not only what has happened in the year it’s been working, but also after it closed. The camp was meant to be only transitional space, and even though many died in the camp from violence and epidemic, we should not forget to commemorate those who were sent to other camps to die or survived with having their life broken into pieces. The survivors had no one to rely on; they stood on the threshold of a new post-war era alone, with lifelong health and psychological trauma. Moreover, without resources, without home – they had been deprived of both. That is why third space of the memorial dedicated to the all the different direction victim of the camp were forced to take and the permanent fear and instability they lived in.

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Brief of the semester

D

D’ 1:3000

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Ceremonial space

section DD’ - scale 1:200 After people leave the exhibition space and granite tranches, another slopping down underground passage will bring them into the footprint of the biggest barrack on the camp ground. Here they will find names of all of the people which went through Lety camp pushed into the concrete walls. In the center of the space will be placed big 0.5 deep water basin with the walkable panels on it. They will be taking visitors 3 direction: Hodonin, Auswitz, and the graveyard / contemplation space for the victims of typhoid. First two directions will bring people into the dark dead end with victims who were sent there pushed into the wall, third will take through the underground 50 meters long passage into the path in the forest. Walkable panels on the water will be slightly unstable, giving those who are on it the feeling of instability while they pass though it. The whole space is meant to remind people of what has happen after camp got closed and of all the different turns prisoners lives was forced to take.

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Pig farm remains

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Pig farm remains

section EE’ - scale 1:400 Following the third passage from ceremonial space visitor will go through a tonnel under the pig farms with the story of its construction and memory of those who helped with the realisation of the memorial (Bozhena Pflegerová, Antonín Hauer and others). Tonnel will bring people back up to the ground level at the start of the forest, where they will be able to see the remains of the pig farms. Farms will be fully demolished and only their foundations pushed half a meter in the ground will be left, as a reminder of long years of dishoner and disrespect from Soviet government and Czech citizens, Romas went through.

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Contemplation space

1:2000

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Contemplation space

The path in the forest will only half a meter lower then the ground level to direct everyone to the mass graveyard, but giving time in nature to think through emotions experienced before. It will bring down to the contemplation space located under the existing memorial by Zdenek Hula. Here in the quite visitors can pay their respect and mourn. There in the wall will pushed it 326 cubes with names of the victims, where it will possible to leave candles, photographs and flowers. Out of these space people can either go up to the old memorial and look at the excavations or go back to the car by the path in the forest to the north from the camp grounds.

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Contemplation space

F

1:300

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F’

Contemplation space

section FF’ - scale 1:200

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Site plan

H

G

G’

H’

1:3500

34

Visualization of exhibition space

35

Site plan

H

G

G’

H’

1:3500

36

Site sections

Section GG’ - scale: 1:500

Section HH’ - scale: 1:500

Axonometric view

38

Serial vision

39

Process sketches

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Process sketches

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Process sketches

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Models

Site model - concept presentation Size: 420x297 mm Material: black cardboard, hand-cut Scale: 1:2000

Site model - final Size: 400x200 mm Material: cream cardboard, laser cut Scale: 1:1000

Detail model of memento tranches Size: 400x400 mm Material: waffle cardboard, hand-cut Scale: 1:15

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ARCHIP 2019