Memorial for the Sinti in Altwarmbüchener Moor
The memorial to the Sinti in Altwarmbüchener Moor in Hannover reminiscent of the Sinti , in the era of National Socialism in a transit camp in Altwarmbüchener Moor were interned and then in death camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau deported were. The location of the memorial is the Moorwaldweg in the Lahe district about 250 meters after the junction from Kirchhorster Straße .
history
Middle Ages until 1918
The oldest known evidence of the occurrence of Sinti in Germany is an entry in the Middle Ages to the year 1407 in a Hildesheim Ratsweinberg Men - register . In the 15th century, discrimination against the Roma began. They were viewed as strangers and were often treated with dislike and hatred, largely because of their unattached, non-sedentary lifestyle.
In Hanover in 1770 five members of a "gypsy and robber gang " were sentenced to death for a number of thefts.
In modern times , some Sinti achieved modest prosperity , for example as horse traders, showmen , musicians or antique dealers .
In the 19th century, the authorities sought to seduce the Roma by withdrawing their traveling trade licenses.
On October 19, 1900, six sedentary families with a total of 29 people were found in Hanover in a nationwide census. In the same year the city set up a meeting point for the first time in the Schulenburger Landstrasse in front of Hainholz . The German empire operated a so-called "land driver policy", which discriminated against the people referred to as gypsies .
Weimar Republic
During the Weimar Republic there were several parking spaces in Hanover for Sinti and Roma wagons , for example the one on Schulenburger Landstrasse , which was also known colloquially as the “ Gypsy Village ” due to its size . Some Sinti lived in the city center, for example in the old town or Calenberger Neustadt , for example in the streets of Bockstrasse , Bergstrasse or Bäckerstrasse (which were partially destroyed by the air raids on Hanover in World War II) . The boxer Johann "Rukeli" Trollmann , who lives here, achieved a great public reputation .
time of the nationalsocialism
The persecution of the Sinti and Roma in the Third Reich by the National Socialists was initially an intensified form of the "land driver policy" already practiced in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic. Later, on the basis of the “ Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Offspring ” of July 14, 1933, numerous sterilization measures were forcibly carried out on Sinti and Roma.
In 1938 there was a large wave of arrests throughout the Reich, as a result of which the “land drivers” were sent to various concentration camps. At the same time, with the help of the Racial Hygiene Research Center (RHF), which was set up in 1936, the Sinti and Roma were fully recorded after Heinrich Himmler issued his decree on December 8, 1938 to “fight the gypsy plague” . The measures were coordinated by the responsible control centers of the criminal police; in Hanover, the Gestapo , the police and state administration offices were also involved .
In 1938, a collection camp was set up by the city in Altwarmbüchener Moor , to which initially only the Sinti who had previously lived on parking spaces were admitted. A total of 55 Sinti were interned in Hanover at the end of October / beginning of November 1938. In addition to the communal collection camp in Altwarmbüchener Moor, such camps were also organized by other cities in northern Germany, such as Braunschweig , Oldenburg and Osnabrück .
In 1939, like all criminal police control centers in Germany, a separate office for "Gypsy questions" was set up in Hanover . In the same year, all Sinti who carried out a traveling trade lost their livelihood due to the arrest decree : on October 17, 1939 , the Reich Security Main Office ordered “the gypsies to be arrested to be housed in special assembly camps until they were finally evacuated”. Felix Linnemann , a former sports functionary and from autumn 1939 head of the Hanover Criminal Police Office, was involved in the registration of Sinti and Roma.
In 1941 and 1942 the majority of the Sinti and Roma were deported to concentration camps throughout the German Reich. In Hanover, from 1942 onwards, the Sinti who had previously lived in rented apartments were forcibly sent to the municipal assembly camp, where they had to live in old railroad cars .
On the night of April 1, 1943, the camp in Altwarmbüchener Moor was surrounded and evacuated by police officers: “The families and their children were driven onto trucks” and taken to the Fischerhof station, from where they were taken to the “ Gypsy family camp ” in the Auschwitz extermination camp. Birkenau were transported. Only a few of the approximately 23,000 prisoners delivered there from other parts of Germany survived.
According to more recent research (as of 2007), at least 750 Sinti and Roma were deported to Auschwitz from what is now Lower Saxony in March 1943 , around 100 of them from Hanover, of which 27 came from the camp in Altwarmbüchener Moor. Between March 1943 and February 1944, at least 113 Sinti were deported from Hanover to Auschwitz. More than half were children.
Memorials and memorials
In 1982 the Federal Government recognized the persecution of Sinti and Roma during the Nazi era as genocide .
On March 1, 1996, the memorial at Fischerhof train station was inaugurated, donated by the Lower Saxony Association of German Sinti eV , but - unlike, for example, the memorial for the murdered Jews of Hanover on Opernplatz - expressly "For all those persecuted by National Socialism".
On March 3, 1998, the memorial was inaugurated at the site of the former collection camp in Altwarmbüchener Moor. The memorial donated by the Lower Saxony Association of German Sinti on the 55th anniversary of the deportations of the Hanoverian Sinti was made in the shape of a gate. The transom bears the inscription
"The gate of Auschwitz was the entrance to hell."
The names and, if known, the dates of birth of around 80 deported Sinti, including the name of the boxer Johann Trollmann and five other Trollmanns, are engraved on the two wooden panels . On the goalposts there is a symbolic Z , which the Sinti and Roma had to wear as a widely visible mark for "Gypsies" in the National Socialist concentration camps. Two verses from the Bible from Psalm 94 (verses 5 and 8) and the Christian phrase "Jesus wins" are engraved on the posts .
On the weekend of Pentecost, three months after its inauguration, right-wing extremists damaged the memorial so much with kicks in their boots that it had to be renewed. Another inauguration took place on September 19, 1998.
The Trollmannweg in the Kreuzkirchenviertel between Burgstrasse and the Kreuzkirche was named after the boxer Johann "Rukeli" Trollmann , and a stumbling block was laid there in 2008 in memory of the 1933 German light heavyweight champion.
In front of the house at Osterstrasse 39 , seven stumbling blocks remind of the Sinti Seeger family, who were arrested in March 1943, deported to Auschwitz and murdered there. Hildegard, the youngest of them, was less than five years old when she was arrested.
literature
- Reinhold Baaske: From Lower Saxony to Auschwitz. The persecution of the Sinti and Roma during the Nazi era , catalog for the exhibition of the Lower Saxony Association of German Sinti eV (107 pages, with illustrations), with the collaboration of Dirk Götting and the students Dora Alapi u. a., Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 2004, ISBN 3-89534-557-1 .
- Wolfgang Günther: The Prussian gypsy policy since 1871 in contradiction between central planning and local implementation. An investigation using the example of the district of Neustadt am Rübenberge and the capital Hanover. In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , New Series 38 (1984), pp. 127–175.
- Cornelia Maria Hein, Heike Krokowski: "It was inhumanly possible". Sinti from Lower Saxony tell - persecution and extermination under National Socialism and discrimination until today , ed. from the Lower Saxony Association of German Sinti eV, Hanover: Lower Saxony Association of German Sinti, 1995, ISBN 3-00-000005-4 .
- Rüdiger Fleiter: City administration in the Third Reich. Persecution policy at municipal level using the example of Hanover , at the same time dissertation at the University of Hanover in 2005 under the title: Fleiter, Rüdiger: The participation of the Hanoverian city administration in the Nazi persecution policy , Volume 10 in the series Hanoverian Studies . Publication series of the Hannover City Archives , Hannover: Hahn , 2006, ISBN 3-7752-4960-5 , p. 277ff.
- Roger Repplinger: " Lie down gypsies". The story of Johann Trollmann and Tull Harder , unabridged paperback edition, Munich; Zurich: Piper, 2012, ISBN 978-3-492-30054-4 .
- Klaus Mlynek : Sinti. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 568.
- Ulrike Dursthoff, Michael Pechel (editor): Memorial for the Sinti. Moor forest path in the Altwärmbüchen moor. In: Places of Remembrance. Guide to sites of persecution and resistance during the Nazi regime in the Hanover region , ed. from the network remembrance and future in the Hanover region, self-published, no year [2007], p. 98f.
- Network Remembrance and Future Region Hannover: Places of Remembrance: Memorial for the Sinti , online
Other media
- Memories in moving pictures - Werner Fahrenhol , Memo Media Production, 2004
Web links
- Lower Saxony Counseling Center for Sinti and Roma eV - Hannover Counseling Center - , website of the counseling center and the Lower Saxony Association of German Sinti and Roma eV
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Ulrike Dursthoff, Michael Pechel (editor): Memorial for the Sinti ... (see literature)
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Klaus Mlynek: Sinti (see literature)
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Ulrike Dursthoff, Michael Pechel (editor): Memorial for the Sinti ... , p. 21f.
- ↑ Linnemann's biography online on the DFB website
- ↑ Network Remembrance and Future Region Hannover: Places of Remembrance: Memorial stone at the Fischerhof train station , online
- ↑ Network Remembrance and Future Region Hannover: Places of Remembrance: Memorial for the murdered Jews of Hanover , online
Coordinates: 52 ° 25 ′ 7.9 " N , 9 ° 50 ′ 23.3" E