Letters to the Editor


Czech service defended

To the Editor:

I just finished reading Richard Crimp's letter to the editor [April 5-11] berating the service in Czech restaurants. Surely Mr. Crimp must realize that the apathetic Czech attitude is not something that admittance to the European Union would solve. Talk to your wife, Mr. Crimp, you said she is a Prague native. Has she told you how much waiters and waitresses make per hour? Shame on you for casting aspersions on the working Czech man. Maybe if the food servers made more than 200 Kc a day (if they're lucky) the service would be better. The supposed apathy of the Czech people dates back to a time when it did not matter how hard the worker worked; each person was given the same "reward" for their effort.


Scott Iler

California, U.S.A.

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How many died?

To the Editor:

My congratulations to The Prague Post for keeping the Lety story alive ["Hidden Holocaust," April 12-18]. Regarding how many Romanies, or Gypsies, died at Lety, I have never been able to get any Czech newspaper to quote my research on the subject. Š I have never put a figure on how many died at Lety. I've only quoted Czech sources and survivors. For example, the Lety Town Hall chronicle (the official history of the village of Lety as kept by the Town Hall secretary) states that over 600 Romanies died at the camp of typhus during the winter of 1942-1943 and were buried in the woods. Five kilometers away, in the archive of the town hall of Mitrovice, it is recorded that over 350 Lety camp Romanies died in the summer and autumn of 1942 and were buried in a mass grave in the Mitrovice cemetery. According to the Mitrovice gravedigger, most of those were children who appeared to have starved to death.

In the Trebon archives, I found among the Lety documents over 800 death certificates signed by seven Czech doctors, several of whom are still alive. Some of those death certificates listed the cause of death as "he ate too much," or "he laughed himself to death."

How many Romanies died at Lety? Several survivors still speak of thousands who were never registered in the camp books.

Paul Polansky

Mason City, Iowa, U.S.A.

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Sudetens suffered too

To the Editor:

My mother was expelled from the Krnov area at the end of World War II. She lost most of her family and all of their possessions. She came to Germany in a cattle car and lived in a refugee camp. She was separated from her family for many years before she had contact with them again, but they were forever separated. First she had five siblings and then none. She never saw her father again and her mother only one more time. About the only thing she has to show for it is her "refugee certificate."

I also think that the Sudeten Germans who were driven out deserve some compensation.

Illona Morris

Yukon, Oklahoma, U.S.A.

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