A mate, on a forum, privately suggested that I might like to comment on this.
Perhaps I would. Yet, I still shy away from doing so on a wide open forum.
Because, to do so could be to play right into the hands of the unreconstructed knuckle draggers who simply wouldn't be able to resist spewing their Daily Mail fueled vitriol. And I'm just not going to provide a platform for that kind of shit.
In fact, I have very little, public, comment to make on this matter. It's not a ball I'm kicking. Have some respect, or get to hell. Simple as that.
Now then; Here's a journalistic, unattributed ~ as far as I can see ~ photograph of the memorial, on its recent day of opening. I've chosen this one because it shows the size / scale.
Okay. So, there it is then. I'll add my own comment / reaction after this fuller report which I've lifted, pretty much at randon, from Google News:
" Germany unveiled Wednesday a national memorial to the hundreds of thousands of Sinti and Roma killed by the Nazi regime, with Chancellor Angela Merkel saying, "Every single death fills me with mourning and shame."
Many in the audience wept as a survivor, Zoni Weisz - who was helped as a 7-year-old boy to escape when his parents were put on an Auschwitz-bound train in the Netherlands during World War II - described the last moment he saw his mother.
She was among 2,900 Sinti and Roma killed in the gas chambers in August 1944.
Weisz attacked contemporary discrimination against Sinti and Roma in many European countries. He said "Society has learned almost nothing from what happened. Otherwise they would treat us in a different way. The world barely speaks of the fate of the Sinti and Roma."
Merkel responded that remembering the victims went hand-in-hand with a commitment to protect minorities today.
The long-delayed monument, a circular dark pool of water with a small triangular plinth at the centre, is close to Berlin's monument to the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and a separate memorial to homosexuals killed under the Third Reich.
Historians estimate between 220,000 and 500,000 Sinti and Roma traveling people in Europe were killed by the Nazis, who regarded them as an inferior race. Some died in massacres and others perished in the death camps such as Auschwitz.
Germany agreed 20 years ago to appeals from the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma for a memorial, but the project was held up amid disputes over the design, cost and mistakes during construction.
An Israeli artist, Dani Karavan, conceived the dark pool as a symbol for death and loss but also for the re-emergence of life.
Merkel called the new monument a "lake of silent tears." An aconitum flower was placed on the plinth to inaugurate the memorial, and a fresh flower is to be placed there daily as a symbol of new life after the tragedy.
"It's restrained, like we wanted. We didn't want something monumental," said Romani Rose, president of the Central Council.
It is located in a park close to the Reichstag parliament building. Nearby plaques detail the story of the Sinti and Roma and the genocide.
The new memorial will be looked after by the same foundation that manages the nearby Holocaust monument, a vast field of grey, tomb-like concrete slabs.
A further memorial, to the disabled and mentally ill who were killed under the Nazis' euthanasia policies, is also planned, Merkel said. "
With thanks to Haaretz.com
And, what's my take on it? Ambiguous, frankly. Unsettled ~ ironically, given the mirror like placidity of its image.
I mean, it's beautiful, isn't it? Undeniably. Breath takingly beautiful. And yet; I can't help ~ couldn't, from my first glimpse ~ but be reminded of the Ash Pools. The water bodies around the Camps. Seemingly permanently effected by the ashes seeping into them.
Most of all though, I see a vision of the near future. The shopping trolley. The beer cans. Something dead.
How long before the pollitically, socially or just down right genetically fucked up show their hand at this site? Will the water carry a high ampage charge, as a little nod to those deciding to piss into it?
And, finally; That triangular plynth. Is it brown? Like the triangle Gypsys were made to wear on their breasts, in Auschwitz?
No. Sorry. (And I'm typing from the heart here. This isn't planned, even much thought about) But, hauntingly beautiful work of art though it is; What's it actually worth?
Forgive me if I seem cynical, but; Probably an hour a days minimum wage to some poor local. Whose job will be to wade in there, each morning. Replace the daily flower, on the plynth. Fish out the beer cans. The shopping trolleys. The human excretia.
I'll bet ye; By the time ye reading this, there'll be photo's circulating around the Neo Nazi sites. Shaven headed Neanderthals giving the Nazi salute, as they drop their guts over that plynth. The new 'ASBO' medal.
Where will the photo journalists of the world be then? Where will the Politico's be? Where will the case for European Gypsys being treated as anything more than Untermenschen be advanced?
That beautiful monument is patently inspired by the concept of a Scrying Glass. A Black Mirror. I see no future comfort from gazing into it.
'Sorry'.
