The Museum of Romani Culture in the Czech Republic is presenting further findings from the archaeological survey now underway at the site of the former WWII-era concentration camp for Romani people at Lety u Písku. The survey, led by Pavel Vařeka of the University of West Bohemia at Plzeň, has been progressing over the past few days directly on the grounds of the former camp, where an industrial pig farm was later built during the communist regime.

The archaeologists have ascertained that most of the former concentration camp was indeed covered over by the subsequently-built farm and that debris from the former camp was still visible at the site in the 1970s when the farm was constructed. Vařeka informed journalists of the news today.

The Museum wants to build a memorial to the Holocaust and its Romani victims at the site, to be opened by 2023. ROMEA TV, the first Internet television channel with Romani content in the Czech Republic, broadcast the press conference about the findings live today.

"Most of the former camp is in the same location as the former farm, maybe 10 % of the former camp lies outside the farm limits. Now it is absolutely unequivocal what their relative locations are, it is a discovery of our research, and a surprising finding is that a great part of the former camp remains intact," the head archaeologist said during the press conference.

"The camp debris has been very well-preserved to this day, it's covered with backfill," the archaeologist said. The camp at Lety, according to historians, saw 1 308 Romani children, men and women pass through it from August 1942 until May 1943, at least 327 of whom died there and more than 500 of whom were deported to the Auschwitz death camp.

After the war, just 600 Romani people total returned to Bohemia and Moravia from the concentration camps. According to experts, this means the Nazis murdered 90 % of the Romani people indigenous to Bohemia and Moravia.

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