Prague, Nov 7 (CTK) – The Czech government decided yesterday to have an appraisal of the land beneath the pig farm in Lety near Pisek, south Bohemia, the site of former concentration camp, done for the state to buy it, government spokesman Martin Ayrer tweeted yesterday.
He wrote that the government approved “the proposal to terminate the operation of the pig large-scale farm in the vicinity of a palce of commemoration.”
The issue was not on the official agenda of the government meeting yesterday.
“I was assigned to have an appraisal of the pig farm done so that we have a sum about which we could talk with representatives of the shareholders,” Culture Minister Daniel Herman (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) said.
He said the pig farm owners have admitted a direct sale. Until now they have preferred the construction of a similar facility in a similar locality arranged by the government.
Finding a solution to the long-time issue is one of the priorities of Human Rights Minister Jiri Dienstbier (Social Democrats, CSSD).
Dienstbier’s dismissal has been speculated about in connection with government changes whcih Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (CSSD) has announced.
The government has been negotiating with the pig farm’s owner since January 2015. According to Dienstbier, the negotiations were delicate because of the public interest in that no facility be on the site as well as the financial interests of the owners.
Last summer, the owners did not rule out the sale of the pig farm. They were ready to talk about a swap for another facility suitable for pig breeding as well.
The camp was established as a labour camp, but during World War Two, it served the interment of Romanies whom the Nazi regime treated on the same footing as Jews.
The Romanies interned in Lety were sent to the extermination camps in Oswiecim (Auachwitz), where several hundreds of them died.
Depuy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Andrej Babis (ANO) was called on to resign because of his statement on Lety in early September.
He spoke about the camp in Varnsdorf, north Bohemia, where he visited a socially excluded locality.
He said Lety was a labour camp and those who did not work ended up there.
Babis later apologised and promised to provide money for the construction of a memorial on the site of the camp.
