Memorial for the deported and murdered Sinti and Roma from Wiesbaden

General view of the Wiesbaden Porajmos monument

Inscription on a sandstone block next to the main monument

Figures lift the heavy load

The roughly executed figures

The memorial for the deported and murdered Wiesbaden Sinti and Roma was inaugurated on December 5, 1992 in Wiesbaden's Bahnhofsstraße.

History and design

The idea and design comes from Josef Reinhardt and Eugen Reinhardt. The monument was carried out by the Sinti workshop in Albersweiler in the Palatinate . The client was the state capital Wiesbaden. The decision to erect the memorial was made on May 21, 1992 by the Wiesbaden city ​​council after a controversial debate.

The memorial, carved from a large red sandstone block , shows a group of men, women and children who - crushed under a heavy burden - are on their way to doom. The figures are only roughly executed.

At the inauguration on December 5, 1992, the city's representatives and guests, headed by Mayor Achim Exner , carried out a warning. They followed the path that the more than 100 Wiesbaden Sinti and Roma had to go in March 1943 when they were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp .

The Wiesbaden memorial is one of the first to commemorate the genocide of Sinti and Roma (Porajmos) . Further monuments are located in Ravensburg (inauguration 1999), Düsseldorf (inauguration 1993) and the Altwarmbüchener Moor camp (established in 1997). For years there was a dispute about the central memorial for the Sinti and Roma of Europe murdered under National Socialism in Berlin, which was inaugurated in 2012 .

• 

  Porajmos monument in Ravensburg with the names of 29 deportees

• 

  Memorial for the Sinti in Altwarmbüchener Moor at the location of the assembly camp in Hanover for around 80 deportees

• 

  Memorial plaque for murdered Sinti in the Höherweg camp in Düsseldorf-Lierenfeld

literature

• Udo Engbring-Romang: Wiesbaden. Auschwitz. On the persecution of the Sinti in Wiesbaden. Ed .: Adam Strauss; Association of German Sinti and Roma, State Association of Hesse. Brandes & Apsel, Frankfurt 1997. ("Callus on the soul". Writings of the Association of German Sinti and Roma, Landesverband Hessen. Volume 2)

Web links

Commons : Memorial for the deported and murdered Sinti and Roma  from Wiesbaden - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Memorial for the deported and murdered Wiesbaden Sinti and Roma (City of Wiesbaden)
• "Between romanticization and racism". Sinti and Roma 600 years in Germany (State Center for Political Education Württemberg for the Sinti workshop)

Coordinates: 50 ° 4 ′ 25.1 ″  N , 8 ° 14 ′ 35.5 ″  E