For post-communist countries, no complete
transition can be made without addressing history. Loss of historical perspective,
collapse of time into the short term, and predatory thinking are features
of postwar angst. But a significant part of that angst is based on an uncertainty
surrounding who we are and who we used to be under the thumb of Nazism
and later under communism. Who were the collaborators here? Who perpetrated
violence, and who helped the violence, oppression, and misery? Was it us
or them-Nazis, Germans, communists, Russians? What to do with so many more
or less quiet years living under communism, more or less completely cooperating
with the regime? If we do not face the fact that communism was functional
for such a long time in part thanks to ourselves, that we were present
when the Nazis transported Jews and Roma to the gas chambers, we will find
ourselves at a point where there is no dimension of time and history.
Markus Pape forces us to discuss the past. In his book And No One Will
Believe You, which is intended to a be a factual account of the concentration
camp in the village of Lety in southern Bohemia, the young German journalist
takes us to the period of the German protectorate in Bohemia and Moravia
(1939 to 1945) and looks at the question of Czech participation in the
murder of Roma. Considering the relationship between Czechs and Germans
during the war and after, as well as the lasting xenophobia and evident
latent and explicit racism of Czech society toward Roma, the book represents
a strong appeal for Czechs to discuss our history and come to terms with
it. Pape's book includes, in addition to documents and descriptions, 12
theses claiming that the Czech protectorate's government and police, of
their own volition, arranged and carried out the genocide of Roma in the
concentration camp at Lety in 1942 and 1943. The camp was administrated
by the protectorate's authorities and brutally managed by a Czech camp
chief and Czech wardens, who committed offenses intentionally-in other
words, purposefully.
Pape documents his argument that building and operating the camp in
Lety was a direct consequence of the presence of the Nazi protectorate
in Bohemia and Moravia, but, because of the increasing repression of Roma
and Sinti even before the German occupation, it was not contradictory to
popular sentiment toward Roma and Sinti at the time. Maltreatment and persecution-even
murder-of the prisoners by the Czech chief and wardens did not contradict
the general Czech attitudes toward Roma. But in addition to giving substantial
evidence documenting those claims, Pape implies that the historical trend
of prewar Czechoslovakia led not only to persecution of Romani, but even
to violence and genocide. Such claims go against past interpretations of
historical facts, their connections to the present, and the assigning of
blame.
While I do not doubt the victims' suffering and the tragic dimensions
of the behavior of the Czechs under the German protectorate, I believe
that the treatment of the Lety prisoners was a gross abuse of the situation
under the protectorate, a situation that allowed personal acts of violence,
cruelty, and theft. Pape's evaluation of Czech attitudes toward Roma is
openly critical, stating that Czech racism against the Roma was a fundamental
part of the politics of the Czech state:
Thesis 10. The public is unconcerned about the misery of the
prisoners in Lety. The historical memory of the public has done nothing
to bring about the closure of the pig farm that was built in the 1970s
on the site of the former camp ...
Thesis 11. Important facts about the camp in Lety are concealed ...
The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., has attempted to obtain
microfilm of camp documents and other material concerning the concentration
camp in Lety ... [The Czech Foreign Ministry] sent only photocopies of
selected archival materials together with a historical introduction. But
the photocopies left out important documents, such as instructions from
the Interior Ministry ... that ordered the transportation to Lety and Hodonin
[a camp in Moravia exclusively for Roma] of Czech and Moravian Roma and
Sinti and which provided detailed lists on their number ...
Pape believes that the Czech state and public intentionally suppressed
and distorted history to the disadvantage of the Roma. It seems, however,
that Pape is so carried away by his own interpretations that he disregards
other historical facts. There is no doubt that postwar governments, especially
the communist bureaucracy, had little interest in presenting an accurate
historical picture. Maybe Pape does not know that the communist police
took over a network of Gestapo agents and continued to use it after the
war or that the communists used to move the Roma by force from Slovakia
to the Czech border area (in the 1950s) and to the north of Bohemia (in
the 1960s). He probably does not know that Roma in Slovakia lived in incredibly
underdeveloped, backward villages, that they were forbidden to lead their
traditionally nomadic life, that the communist regime forced them to assimilate,
losing their mother tongue and historical consciousness. Yes, the communist
government did all that and more, as it was a totalitarian regime of injustice
where human rights were concerned. Today we have to uncover history and
correct it step by step, to give ourselves a complete picture. Nevertheless,
it is not appropriate to blame the present Czech state for intentionally
suppressing or corrupting history.
Markus Pape has written a careful and solid-extremely solid by journalistic
standards-historical piece of research. But he did not present its results
in the form of historical research; instead, he used it to apply pressure,
however well intended. But even this is speculation. The truth cannot be
fully told without further historical research.