Berlin’s Memorial Mile
Groups representing both the homosexuals and the Gypsies began many years ago to plan for their own plot on Berlin’s memorial mile. But they were both stalled, not only by long processes to secure land and funding, but also by contentious infighting over what the memorials should look like and to whom, precisely, they should be dedicated.
For the Sinti and Roma, the dispute has been raging for years, with construction of the fountain to commemorate the 500,000 Sinti and Roma who died in the Holocaust originally set for 2004. But two separate groups representing Gypsies in Germany could not agree on the inscription, and the project stalled — transforming a rickety wooden sign marking the spot across the street from the German parliament building as an unintended monument to bitter infighting. Even the 2006 agreement by the German government to provide funding failed to resolve the stalemate.
The design calls for a fountain conceived by Israeli sculptor Dani Karavan, inscribed with a poem called “Auschwitz” by Italian poet Santino Spinelli. A triangular pillar will jut out of the fountain with a rose placed on the top of it. Once a day, the pillar will sink down into the fountain and the flower will be replaced. The project is expected to cost €2 million ($2.95 million). Construction is now set to begin in February.
Plans for a monument to homosexual Holocaust victims (the Nazis imprisoned 54,000 homosexuals and some 7,000 died in concentration and work camps) were delayed by a similar dispute. In 2003, the German government approved plans for a €600,000 memorial, but some advocacy groups objected to one facet of the design: a video of two men kissing that would play on an endless loop at one end of the monument. The video, they argued, did not recognize the suffering of lesbians as well as gay men. In the final design, a video of two women kissing will rotate every two years with the video of a male couple.
