Antifascist Blind Spots or Deliberate Forgetting?: Absence of Monuments for the Persecuted Sinti and Roma in East Germany

• In Event: Between Absence and Presence: Negotiating the Commemoration of Nazi Injustice in East and West Germany as well as Poland

Abstract

In the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the commemoration of Sinti and Roma as victims of Nazi crimes was largely marginalized within an official narrative that primarily celebrated anti-fascist resistance. This framework tended to overshadow the specific racial persecution experienced by Sinti and Roma. Only in 1989 a memorial at the former camp site in Berlin-Marzahn was erected due to the efforts of activists and church initiatives. This memorial highlights the complexities and occasional contradictions in GDR memory politics. Also, for Magdeburg a memorial was planned, where in the 1930s a large communal detention camp for Sinti and Roma existed. This was, however, never realized due to the local specificities and Germany’s reunification. Here, the plan was to create a monument that symbolizes Unku – a young Sinti woman who was persecuted by the Nazis and became fictionalized as a main character in a popular GDR children’s book.
This paper critically analyzes these efforts to commemorate Sinti and Roma victims of Nazi crimes in the GDR and situates it in the state’s specific ideological setting for commemoration. Furthermore, the questions of the involvement of Sinti and Roma themselves arises. Whereas in the West of Germany the civil rights movement of German Sinti and Roma publicly fought for a recognition of their racial persecution and an appropriate place in the commemoration culture, the attempts in the GDR are characterized by an absence of Sinti and Roma speaking on their behalf.

Author

• Verena Meier, U of Heidelberg (Germany)