Memorial to Romani victims of the Nazis finally unveiled in Berlin
The Berlin memorial to Sinti and Roma victims of the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Europe has finally been unveiled today by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.
More than 67 years after the end of hostilities in Western Europe, and after many years of wrangling around the content of the memorial, Romani survivors of the Holocaust looked on as the Chancellor of the Federal Republic declared the memorial officially open.
The memorial consists of a circular pool of water in black stone, engraved with the poem 'Auschwitz' by Italian Romani musician Santino Spinelli, with a rising and falling triangular plinth in the centre upon which a new flower will be placed every day.
It was sculpted by the Israeli artist Dani Karavan, whose other works include the Negev monument in Israel and the Charles de Gaulle Esplanade in Paris.
The leader of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, Romani Rose, told Agence France-Presse that opening the memorial 'sends an important message to society that anti-Roma sentiment is as unacceptable as anti-Semitism.' 13 members of Mr Rose's family were murdered by the Nazis.
Many European states in which Romani people were murdered have shown reluctance to come to terms with the nature and extent of the Holocaust against the 'Gypsies'.
In Germany, where the Nuremberg laws decreed 'Gypsies' ('Zigeuner' in German) an equal threat in racial terms to Jews, Romani people were pursued ferociously: however, the German government did not acknowledge the genocide of the Sinti and Roma until 1982.
Even after this time, the families of Romani people who before being murdered were forced to work as slaves for some of Germany's biggest companies, including Volkswagen, Mercedes and Siemens, continued to struggle for compensation.
The fate of Romani people in other occupied countries varied from country to country: in Croatia, for example, virtually the entire Romani population was annihilated.
Mass shootings of Romanies took place across Europe, from Western Russia to Bavaria, and Romani people were interned in camps from the southern tip of Italy to the foothills of the Pyrenees in the south west of France.
Romanies were not always referred to as 'Zigeuner' in official Einsatzgruppen (killing squad) documents, but often simply as thieves or 'remainder to be liquidated'. As a result, it is difficult to estimate accurately exactly how many Romanies died during the Second World War. Official estimates vary from 200,000 to 1.5 million.
'Sinti' is a name the Romani people of Western continental Europe use to refer to themselves: many in France also use the name 'Manouches' or 'Manush'. It is believed by experts that the Romany Gypsies of Great Britain are descendants of the Sinti, due to similarities in the way they speak the Romani language.
Romani people from eastern Europe, who also died in vast numbers under the Nazis, generally refer to themselves as Roma: hence the memorial is dedicated to the Sinti and Roma victims of the Holocaust.