Frankfurt am Main (plaque, Dieselstrasse)
Historical background
The plaque commemorates the place where a Gypsy camp was located before 1937. The camp was transformed into a closed camp in August 1937. Its prisoners were subjected to numerous anthropological and medical tests performed by Robert Ritter and Ewa Justin (see also: Frankfurt am Main (plaque, Braubachstrasse), which led to the creation of the ”Gypsiness” criteria used to make deportation lists and to send the Roma and Sinti to death camps, mainly to Auschwitz.
Description of commemoration
The plaque (in gray with a thick black frame) is placed at eye level on the facade of the building at 30-40 Dieselstraße. Today, various companies have their headquarters at this address. A little further on the same street you can see the warehouse buildings and barracks from the time when the Gypsy transit camp was located here. 150 people were detained in this place until 1942, when the camp was liquidated and its prisoners deported to KL Auschwitz.
Inscriptions
Die NS Behörden der Stadt Frankfurt / am Main setzten auf diesem Gelände seit / dem Sommer 1937 Sinti und Roma-Familien / zwangsweise fest. Sie “lebten” hier unter / unmenschlichen Bedingungen. // 1942 wurden Sinti und Roma in das / Zwangslager Kruppstraße verbracht. / Von dort wurden mehr als hundert / Menschen vor allem nach Auschwitz / verschleppt und dort ermordet. // “Weckt mich nicht aus meinem Traum, / damit die Welt nicht verstehen muß, / wie ein Rom behandelt wird.” // (Lied der Sinti und Roma aus Auschwitz)
Translation:
This place was selected by the National Socialist authorities of the city of Frankfurt am Main to establish a forced labour camp for the Sinti and Roma families. The detainees “lived” here in inhuman conditions. In 1942, the Sinti and Roma were taken to the camp at Kruppstraße. From there, over a hundred people were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were murdered.
‘Don’t wake me up from my dream so that the world doesn’t have to understand how a Roma person is treated (Song of the Sinti and Roma from Auschwitz)
Date of the unveiling
December 12, 1994
Author
Günter Maniewski
Initiator
The Association of the German Sinti and Roma Landesverband Hessen e.V.
Address
Dieselstraße 30-40, 60314 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Location
50°07’17.0″N 8°44’41.9″E
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Materials
Puvogel, Ulrike/Stankowski, Martin: Gedenkstätten für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus. Eine Dokumentation, 2., überarb. und erw. Auflg., Band I, Bonn 1995, S. 301-302.
http://gedenkorte.sintiundroma.de/index.php?ortID=21
Gallery
