Romeo Franz, artist, and member of the European Parliament:
I'm talking here today as an artist who
composed and recorded the sound image at the monument to the Sinti and Roma
murdered in National Socialism. The sound image is part of this monument
designed and built by Dani Caravans. The monument not only refers to the well
and to the stones lying around the well where the names of the concentration
camp camps are carved, but it refers to the whole
area, i.e. the trees on the right and stand on the left, and the tablets that
have been attached belong to this entire piece of art. I can still remember
doing the installation for the sound with Dani caravans for days so that it has
the correct effect it has today, which belongs to the whole monument.
This
would also mean if trees were cut down, it would change the entire character of
the monument, and thus this artwork would be destroyed. We can't let that
happen and Dani Karavan has also made a very clear statement about this. I
remember how we fought for the monument for 20 years and how humiliating that
time was, how many times we felt humbled by this discussion. I can still
remember that our monument was intended to turn into a ′′ gypsy monument ′′ and
that there was little empathy.
Anyway, these 20 years of struggle for the monument
have been indelibly burnt into our memory. And now, after eight years, you
seriously ask yourself the question or are considering dismantling or changing
our monument because of a railway route. I find this thought a shame. It's a
shame to even have this thought and it shows what history forgetting
institutions and also Deutsche Bahn has, that they hardly have the meaning of
the genocide of our humans on their screen. That is why I demand that our
monument should not be touched and that it should be declared a mandatory point
that is crucial for the course of the S-Bahn route, as well as the monument to
the murdered Jews of Europe.
Hands away
from our memorial!
The
memorial of the Sinti and Roma of Europe murdered in National Socialism is
untouchable.
It would be a shame for Germany and a humiliation of the victims and bereaved
of the genocide, if the Berlin Senate and the Deutsche Bundesbank, with their planned construction of the S21, would change or block the memorial as a whole.