17 decisions despite the large Roma refugee population in the country. In the years since 2005—the beginning of the Decade of Roma Inclusion, a program under which EU leaders expressed intent to support the human rights of the historically oppressed and violated Roma—the community had increasingly become the victims of violence and racist policies that excluded them from opportunity.31 After the German government gave its commitment to the development of the memorial in April 1992, Romani Rose, a leading figure for the Roma and Sinti civil rights movement, selected Israeli artist Dani Karavan as the designer. Karavan was already an established artist at this time, with a portfolio of works specific to memorial actions, including Jerusalem City of Peace at the 1976 Venice Biennale, and Passages, a work constructed at Spanish town of Portbou on the border of France as a marker of the site of Walter Benjamin’s death. Karavan’s visual vocabulary is minimalist, and many of his works utilize the environment within which they are set. The design of the Roma memorial follows this same language. As an Israeli Jew with family who perished in the Holocaust, Karavan agreed to design the memorial because he felt “an incredible sadness for the people who may have been in the same camps as his grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousin.” 32 Karavan’s statement on the official site for the memorial describes it as:
31
The general polices that framed the initiation of the Decade of Roma Inclusion are available on their website, at http://romadecade.org. The specific statement of intent for the development of the Decade and the associated events, comments, and actions states: “The Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005–2015 is an unprecedented political commitment by European governments to eliminate discrimination against Roma and close the unacceptable gaps between Roma and the rest of society. The Decade focuses on the priority areas of education, employment, health, and housing, and commits governments to take into account the other core issues of poverty, discrimination, and gender mainstreaming.” 32
Dani Karavan, “Hommage an die im holocaust enmordeten Sinti und Roma,” in “Das Schwarze Wasser” (The Black Water) - O Kalo Phani Memorial for the Sinti and Roma Murdered in the Times of National Socialism, edited by Lith Bahlmann, Moritz Pankok, and Matthias Reichelt, (Berlin: Edition Braus /Aufbau Verlag, 2012), 55, translation my own.