Borzęcin Dolny (memorial)
Historical background
See: Borzęcin Dolny (cemetery)
Description of commemoration
The memorial has the form of a larch board, into which a figure of a kneeling woman (from the side of the road) and a falling man were embedded on both sides. It is located on a small hill, which makes it more visible from the road. From the forest side – it is located in a clearing, created after the removal of several trees, near the place where the Roma were murdered and buried until the exhumation.
The author’s idea was to create a monument that would blend in with the background and look like it “belonged” to the actual and imaginary forest. The murder of the Roma in this place in some way forever binds the victims with the forest as a place of their execution, which, according to the author, is to be reflected in the form of commemoration.
On April 22, 2016, the memorial was devastated by vandals, who had overturned the wooded board, and broke the characters and the information board. The campaign to renovate the monument included the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, who had been asked to join in the effort by numerous people, including a group of over 150 artists, people of science and art who addressed the President asking for his reaction. The renovated memorial (completely new characters and a plate with cut off jagged sides, complete new plaques on the memorial and a new information board), came from the studio in Bukowina Tatrzańska and was erected in July 2016. The unveiling ceremony took place on August 1, on the eve of International Remembrance Day of the Extermination of the Roma, during one of the yearly editions of the International Roma Memorial Caravan.
Inscriptions
In Polish:
Nie było życia dla Cyganów w mieście / i na wsi zabijali, zabijali nas. / Co robić? Szły z dziećmi Cyganki w las, / daleko w las, by nie znalazły nas niemieckie psy. / (Papusza) // Miejsce pamięci o 29 Romach: / 3 mężczyznach, 5 kobietach / i 21 dzieciach, / zastrzelonych tutaj przez Niemców w 1942
Translation:
There was no life for Gypsies in the city / and in the countryside they killed, they killed us. / What to do? Gypsy women and their children went into the woods / far into the woods so that German dogs would not find us. / (Papusza) // Memorial site for 29 Roma: / 3 men, 5 women / and 21 children, / shot here by Germans in 1942
Date of the unveiling
2010 – erecting the cross
2011 – memorial, 2016 – renovation of the memorial
Author
Małgorzata Mirga-Tas
Initiator
Adam Bartosz
Address
A forest car park next to road No. 964
Location
50°05’54.1″N 20°44’14.7″E
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Materials
http://romski-pomnik.blogspot.com/
Gallery
