PREPARATION OF THE COMPETITION

The project very intensively affects the families of the victims of Czech Roma and Sinti who died or were imprisoned in Lety, as well as the entire Roma community in the Czech Republic and Europe. At the same time, the project is in a way repaying the entire society‘s debt to the suffering of the Roma and Sinti during World War II, and thus affects the whole Czech and broadly European society and many experts and activists who deal with this issue. At the same time, the events surrounding the preparation of the competition, the realization of the Memorial will affect the wider area where the locals live. They are local experts and have their needs and ideas about the future of the Memorial.

For these reasons, a number of participants were involved in the preparation of the competition in order to inform them about the current state of the Memorial, the forthcoming competition, the purpose of the project, the mission and theme of the Memorial. The aim was further to motivate representatives of the Roma community, professional institutions, organizations and local people to constructively discuss the current situation and express the expectations or concerns associated with the future of the Memorial. Last but not least, the aim was to build the trust of the Roma and Sinti community and the locals in the project and institution, the people who represented it.

Project participants were involved by taking part in a working or consulting group. A separate meeting with local people took place.

More than 100 representatives of the survivors of the Lety camp were invited to the consultation group; representatives of the Roma groups who participated in the fight for the purchase of the pig farm; associations and initiatives dealing with Roma and human rights issues, state or state-run organizations; professional and academic institutions; the project partners and non-Roma personalities, openly supporting the Roma minority. The participants were acquainted with the main outputs of the working group meetings and had the opportunity to comment on these outputs and submit their suggestions to them.

In May 2019, a meeting with residents of the surrounding villages took place in the social hall of the Lety restaurant. Representatives of municipalities and residents of Lety u Písku, Králová Lhota, Orlik nad Vltavou, Mirovice and Kozlí were invited. The aim of the meeting was to present the ideas about the future of the Memorial, but first of all to find out the assessment of the current state of the territory by its inhabitants and to map the expectations and possible concerns of the locals.

Project participants will also be invited to consult the proposals arising from the competition. Members of the working, consulting group and representatives of neighbouring municipalities and their residents will be invited to the exhibition of competition designs after the competition, where they will have the opportunity to consult selected authors with their proposals. The relevant results of the consultations will then be taken into account in the design of the Memorial. The ordering party assumes that the exhibition of the competition designs will be travelling and will be held in Lety u Písku, Museum of Romani Culture in Brno and Prague.