2 August marks the anniversary of the murder of the last remaining Sinti* and Roma* people in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. On the night of 3 August 1944, members of the SS killed over 4,300 people in gas chambers – mostly women, children, and old people. The total number of victims of the Porajmos, the genocide of the European Sinti* and Roma* under National Socialism, is estimated at up to 500,000. Like Jews, Roma* and Sinti* people throughout Europe were systematically registered, disenfranchised, marginalised, robbed, deported, and exterminated on the basis of racist policies.
A memorial on Simsonweg in Berlin’s Tiergarten park has been honouring Dani Karavan since 2012. A place ‘where there is nothing. No words, no names, no metal, no stone. Only tears, only water, surrounded by the survivors, by those who remember what happened, by those who knew the horror and others who did not’, as Dani Karavan herself said. Only the poem ‘Auschwitz’ by Italian composer Santino Spinelli surrounds the circular fountain. In 2022, the names and faces of nine murdered victims and survivors of the genocide were added. They stand not only for the atrocities committed against innocent people, but above all for self-assertion and resistance, for the will to live, and to stand up to make a difference in society despite the irreparable suffering. It was a great honour for me to create nine animated short films that depict the biographies at the memorial.
Remembering Zilli Schmidt.
Reminiscent of Zoni Weisz.
Remembering Noncia Alfreda Markowska.
Reminiscent of Mateo Maximoff.
Remembering Lydia Krylova.
Memory of Branko Ackovic.
Reminiscent of Adam Ujvari.
Remembering Vinko Franz.
Remembering Emílie Machálková.
But what do remembrance and commemoration mean in a Europe of rising fascism, wars, and social division? How is commemoration possible in a society that will allow the memorial to the Sinti* and Roma* of Europe murdered under National Socialism to be irreparably damaged by a suburban railway construction project? That Roma* are still living an inhumane life in Moldova or the Balkans and are being deported, although their ancestors were murdered in Auschwitz? The inflationarily overused ‘historical responsibility’ is hard to find, especially in the case of the Roma* and Sinti*. Politics and society are still called upon to fulfil their mandate because remembrance must mean change.
