An Art Competition Opens for a Plaque on the Building Where the Roma Transports Were Organised

Živá paměť, o.p.s., working with the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, has announced an art competition for the design of a memorial plaque to be fixed to the building at Bartolomějská 310/10 in Prague 1. Designs are due by 21 November 2026. Prague 1 published the announcement as a press release from the organisation on 15 September; the district is funding the project this year.

The address is the substance of it. The plaque's text will record that the directorate of the criminal police responsible for organising the transports of Roma and Sinti to concentration and extermination camps was based in this building during the Second World War. The text will also carry a commemorative line: "We do not forget the victims of the Roma and Sinti holocaust…"

The brief

The competition is open to students and graduates of art schools and to other visual artists up to the age of 35. The stated aim is a contemporary and dignified artistic solution that reflects the holocaust of the Roma and Sinti and the historical significance of the place, while respecting the character of a heritage-protected setting.

That last condition is not a formality on this street. Bartolomějská is a protected environment in the middle of the conservation area, and a plaque on a facade there is a design problem constrained on every side — scale, material, fixing, how much it is allowed to say.

We want to create a dignified place of memory in the centre of Prague, one that commemorates not only the victims of the holocaust of the Roma and Sinti but also the specific place connected with organising their persecution and deportation. By involving young artists we also want to give space to an artistic view of a neglected part of our history.

— Pavel Voves, director of Živá paměť

Who judges it

A six-member expert jury made up of representatives of professional institutions, Roma organisations, the visual arts, and descendants of survivors. The three best designs will be financially rewarded.

Entrants will be offered consultations during the competition: on the technical and artistic brief with representatives of the Academy of Fine Arts, and on questions of content with Živá paměť. If there is interest, a historian's lecture on the persecution of Roma and Sinti during the Second World War and the historical context of the future plaque will also be arranged.

The full conditions, the technical brief and the information for entrants are published by the organisers.

A marker on the place, not on the outcome

One thing in the announcement is worth reading twice. Živá paměť says the plaque is meant to commemorate the victims and the specific building connected with organising their persecution and deportation. Those are two different jobs for one object, and the second one is the unusual part: the marker goes on the address where the administrative work was done, not at the place where its consequences were suffered.

That is our reading of the brief rather than a stated aim, but it is the constraint the entrants will have to resolve — a memorial that names an office, on a protected facade, in a few square metres, by 21 November.