Gypsy Monument Hell and Fire - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 52° 21.393 E 004° 52.884
31U E 628124 N 5802361
Located on the field near the Van Gogh Museum.
Waymark Code: WMQMMQ
Location: Noord-Holland, Netherlands
Date Posted: 03/03/2016
Views: 2
Not reading Dutch, I did not know what this monument was when I encountered it. Coming home and doing the research and learning about it, it seems very fitting. The Sinti and Roma are often forgotten in discussions of Holocaust victims.
Wikipedia (
visit link) indicated that this monument is at the Amsterdam Museum...but it is actually in a field near several Museums...most closely to the Van Gogh Museum. It does however provides a description of the work:
"The Gypsy Monument Hell and fire at the Amsterdam Museum is a bronze statue of a man, woman and two children who flee a blazing fire. The statue stands on a plinth and is 3.50 m high. The author is sculptor Helen Levano (Utrecht, 1941).
The inscription on the base is taken from a dead prayer of gypsies: Putrav Lesko crowd angle last, to after inkrav lesson mai but palpale mura brigasa (Imagine their way into the new life open to them and save them from the bonds of sorrow).
On the other side of the pedestal is the following: Gypsy Monument commemorating the millions of Gypsies perished in World War II. Offered to the city of Amsterdam by Stichting ROM - August 1, 1978.
The statue is a gift from Helen Levano the ROM Foundation (earlier advocacy for Roma). This is then donated to the city of Amsterdam. The monument was unveiled on November 25, 1978 by Gypsy King Koko Petalo . It was the first monument in the world for Gypsies.
Heleen Levano says of the design
"On Koka Patalo I asked what Roma is the symbol for danger." Fire, "he said. So I pictured the fire in the building where they went through. I made it because it is the only answer is you can give. I think it's a terrible thing, how a group of people being sent back and forth. a lot of people do not seem to know or want to know that so many gypsies were killed. it is the way to draw attention to a forgotten group . "
Sinti and Roma held annually on August 1 a memorial ceremony at the monument. On the night of July 31 to August 1, 1944, 5,000 Roma and Sinti (men, women and children) in Auschwitz gassed."