Pre-Site Visit Reflection
The Berlin Memorial for Sinti and Roma is located in the Tiergarten and was completed in October 2012. Designed by Dani Karavan, the monument consists of a round water basin with a triangular stone stele in the centre. A fresh flower is placed on the stele daily, both to remember the murdered Sinti and Roma and to act as a symbol of life. Around the edge of the water basin the words of the poem “Auschwitz”, by Italian Roma Santino Spinello, are inscribed in English, German, and Romany, reading “Sunken in face/extinguished eyes/cold lips/silence/a torn heart/without breath/without words/without tears.” The water basin is also surrounded by a number of stones detailing the places where Sinti and Roma were deported to under Nazi rule. The monument also includes the sound of an ever-changing violin tone from Romeo Franz’s piece “Mare Manuschenge”, or “Our People”, which draws considerable influence from both traditional and modern Sinti music.
The Nazi genocide of the Sinti and Roma, referred to in Romany as “Porajmos”, or “the devouring”, had a long path to recognition and memorial in Germany. It was not until 1982 that the Federal Government, under Helmut Schmidt, acknowledged that the genocide had occurred. The racial aspect to the Porajmos was not recognized until 1997, when Federal President Roman Herzog stated that the Nazi genocides of both the Sinti and Roma and the Jews were born out of the same “motive of racial madness.” 1997 also saw the first permanent exhibition dedicated to the Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg. The Auschwitz State Museum opened its own permanent exhibition on the Sinti and Roma in 2001.
The German government first agreed to build a separate memorial for Sinti and Roma victims of Nazi persecution in 1992, but for a number of reasons the project stalled out and ultimately took 20 years to complete. This was in part because the Sinti and Roma remain a marginalized group in Europe, and continue to face a great deal of discrimination. As a consequence, they tend to avoid engaging with broader society, and therefore don’t have many non-Roma contacts to help advocate for them, something unfortunately often needed to get memorial projects off the ground. The civil rights movements of the Sinti and Roma, as well as many other groups, did not come into being until the 1960s, and remain scattered, disunited, and lacking in political influence. The other major issue hindering the memorial’s construction was the use of language to describe it. While the design of the memorial was generally accepted by the mid-2000s, there was considerable dispute over proposed descriptions for the memorial, mainly due to some advocacy groups wanting to avoid any use of the term “Gypsy” while others worried about the exclusion of persecuted groups beyond just the Sinti and Roma. The memorial has also been the site of more recent controversy, this time surrounding a proposed new train line that would run right under the memorial, causing concerns about the damage or destruction of the memorial. As far as I can tell, this issue arose in 2020 and has not yet been resolved.
Post-Site Visit Reflection (19 May 2024)
Visiting the Memorial to the Sinai and Roma victims of Nazi persecution in Berlin offered me a great deal of insight into how the memorial actually functioned that no amount of pre-visit research could provide, as well as an interesting comparison between it and the other memorials we visited that same day on our walking tour.
I was apprehensive about the site prior to our visit, unsure how well it would capture the specificity of the Sinti and Roma experience under Nazi rule, but was almost immediately struck by the series of information boards just outside of the memorial proper, which provided information not just about the Porajmos, the Nazi genocide of the Sinti and Roma, but also about the post-war struggle for recognition of the Porajmos and profiles of various important members of both the Sinti and Roma peoples, including a number of people who survived the Holocaust and went on to become advocates for their communities. This was an aspect I particularly appreciated, as it demonstrates that these people were more than just victims of Nazi persecution; they lived full and complex lives both before and after the Holocaust. This was also something reflected in the other memorials I found myself drawn to.
Another aspect of the memorial that stood out to me was its proximity to the Bundestag. Although the memorial is tucked away in the Tiergarten rather than openly situated in the middle of the city like some of the other sites we visited, it sits directly across the street from the Bundestag and its presence in the park is made obvious by boards containing quotes from former Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and former Federal President Roman Herzog, which were both integral to the recognition of the Nazi genocide of the Sinti and Roma and make the memorial difficult to ignore. This suggests that the site’s location was chosen to make it impossible for Germany to deny the Nazi persecution of the Sinti and Roma any longer, placing it so close to the seat of the German government to ensure the Porajmos could not be swept under the rug again.
The memorial’s use of sound was unique among the memorial sites we visited, and it added a layer of reflective calm to my experience of the memorial itself. As the memorial is situated off of a main path in the Tiergarten, behind a series of boards detailing the timeline of the Nazi persecution of the Sinti and Roma, you have to physically step into the memorial space to hear Romeo Franz’s piece. This makes it a site you have to deliberately experience, rather than one you stumble upon. The music also creates an interesting combination with the sounds of nature in the park. Our visit was on a warm, bright day, and therefore Franz’s composition was layered over the sounds of birds chirping, creating a sense of mourning for those who were lost while also reflecting how the Sinti and Roma remain as lively communities despite that loss.
Although there were many aspects of the memorial I greatly appreciated, my visit also left me with a number of questions. Foremost among them is an issue of translation, as the words of Santino Spinello’s poem “Auschwitz” that are inscribed along the edge of the pool are translated differently at the site itself than they are in any publication I have found about the memorial. The general meaning of the words is the same, but the phrasing is different enough that it stood out to me immediately, and it remains the biggest question I have regarding the site. Another major question came from a peer who asked me about the stones around the pool that contain the names of places where the Sinti and Roma were imprisoned and murdered during the Porajmos and if they were arranged in any particular order. My impression was that there was no clear order to the stones’ placement, but I could also be incorrect, and the official website for the memorial does not provide enough information for me to make a judgement either way.
Overall I found the memorial to be effective as both an educational tool and as a place of remembrance. The general lack of knowledge about the Porajmos means it is unfortunately necessary for the site to act as both, but it manages to balance the two tasks well by placing the informational boards outside the memorial and allowing the two aspects of the site to exist in separate spaces. It also reflects the continued existence of the Sinti and Roma peoples, through not ending the story in 1945 and instead leading it into the present day, reminding us that these groups continue to face heavy discrimination across Europe.
Citations:
Michael Zimmermann, “The Berlin Memorial for the murdered Sinti and Roma: Problems and points for discussion,” Romani Studies 17, no.1 (Jan. 2007): 1-30.
https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-sinti-roma-holocaust-memorial/a-54396853
https://www.roma-sinti-holocaust-memorial-day.eu/#recognition