• Memorial to the Sinti and Roma of Europe Murdered Under the National Socialist Regime
Under National Socialism, hundreds of thousands of people were persecuted and murdered as »Gypsies«. In the memory of the victims, the Federal Republic of Germany erected a memorial which was inaugurated in the heart of Berlin in October 2012.
Image:  Asperg, 1940, Deportation of Sinti and Roma, Bundesarchiv, R 165 Bild-244-47
Asperg, 1940, Deportation of Sinti and Roma, Bundesarchiv, R 165 Bild-244-47

Image: Berlin, 2012, Detailed view of the memorial, Stiftung Denkmal, Marko Priske
Berlin, 2012, Detailed view of the memorial, Stiftung Denkmal, Marko Priske
After coming to power in 1933, the National Socialists intensified the persecution of Sinti and Roma. From 1934 on, members of this minority were subject to forced sterilization, in 1935 the police set up compulsory camps for them in many German cities. Hundreds of people were interned in such a camp in the Berlin borough of Marzahn two weeks before the Olympic Games of 1936. In the same year, the National Socialists enacted a racist special law, which for »Gypsies« meant a ban to get married and exclusion from certain professions and the German army. In 1938, National Socialist authorities seized thousands of Sinti and Roma from Germany and Austria and took them away to concentration camps – the registration and persecution was coordinated centrally from Berlin. The »Reichsführer-SS« Heinrich Himmler issued a basic decree »to tackle the Gypsy question on the basis of race« in order to find a »final solution to the Gypsy question«. With that, Himmler created the fundament for the eventual deportation and murder of Sinti and Roma, which was set into operation with the beginning of the Second World War. After the German attack on the USSR in the summer of 1941, SS-Einsatzgruppen carried out mass shootings of Roma in the occupied Soviet territories. Beginning in February 1943, more than 20,000 Sinti and Roma from throughout Europe were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and imprisoned there in a section designated as the »Gypsy camp«. Most of them were murdered there, the last in the night of August 2, 1944.
Image:  Asperg, 1940, Deportation of Sinti and Roma, Bundesarchiv, R 165 Bild-244-47
Asperg, 1940, Deportation of Sinti and Roma, Bundesarchiv, R 165 Bild-244-47

Image: Berlin, 2012, Detailed view of the memorial, Stiftung Denkmal, Marko Priske
Berlin, 2012, Detailed view of the memorial, Stiftung Denkmal, Marko Priske
Up to 500,000 men, women and children who were persecuted as »Gypsies« have become victims of the genocide under National Socialist rule. The precise number is probably impossible to determine. Members of the Yeniche people and other travellers were also subject to persecution as »Gypsies«.
Image: probably Ghetto Radom, around 1941, Senta and Sonja Birkenfelder, who had been deported from Ludwigshafen to Poland in 1940, Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrum Deutscher Sinti und Roma, Heidelberg
probably Ghetto Radom, around 1941, Senta and Sonja Birkenfelder, who had been deported from Ludwigshafen to Poland in 1940, Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrum Deutscher Sinti und Roma, Heidelberg

Image: Berlin, 2012, Names of concentration camps emgraved on stones surrounding the fountain, Stiftung Denkmal, Marko Priske
Berlin, 2012, Names of concentration camps emgraved on stones surrounding the fountain, Stiftung Denkmal, Marko Priske
The genocide against the Sinti and Roma of Europe was for a long time almost entirely absent from public discourse. It was only in 1982 that Chancellor Helmut Schmidt acknowledged the genocide as such. The idea of erecting a national monument in remembrance of the European Sinti and Roma killed under National Socialism dates back to 1992. The Central Council of German Sinti and Roma proposed the Israeli artist Dani Karavan to design the memorial. In 2005, the federal government and Berlin agreed on a section of the Tiergarten park between the Reichstag building and the Brandenburg Gate as the site of the future memorial. Still, many years were to pass before the memorial was completed. One reason was the heated debate between associations of victims as to the inscriptions, but there were also technical problems with the construction of Karavan's memorial. The memorial could eventually be inaugurated by Chancellor Angela Merkel in October 2012.
At the centre of a black circular fountain, a fresh flower lies on an immersible triangular stone as a symbol of grief and remembrance. One never-ending violin note underlines the visual impression. Around the edge of the fountain is a quote from the poem “Auschwitz” by the Italian Roma poet Santino Spinelli in English and in German. The memorial is surrounded by a number of boards which recount the chronology of the genocide, again in English and in German.
Image: Berlin, 2012, View of the memorial, Stiftung Denkmal, Marko Priske
Berlin, 2012, View of the memorial, Stiftung Denkmal, Marko Priske

Image: Berlin, 2012, Survivor Reinhard Florian from East Prussia next to Chancellor Merkel on the day of the memorial's inauguration, Stiftung Denkmal, Marko Priske
Berlin, 2012, Survivor Reinhard Florian from East Prussia next to Chancellor Merkel on the day of the memorial's inauguration, Stiftung Denkmal, Marko Priske
Name
Denkmal für die im Nationalsozialismus ermordeten Sinti und Roma Europas
Address
Simsonweg
10557 Berlin
Phone
+49 (0) 30 263 943 0
Fax
+49 (0) 30 263 943 20
Web
http://www.stiftung-denkmal.de/
E-Mail
info@stiftung-denkmal.de
Open
The memorial is accessible at all times
Possibilities
Guided tours and workshops for pupils at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe