Since more than seven years the Roma Union made efforts to have a commemorative plaque attached to the wall of the health centre of Frankfurt/Main. The plaque was meant to remind of the Roma and Sinti, who were murdered during the National Socialsm, and it should bear the names of the relevant National Socialsm racial researchers Robert Ritter and Eva Justin, who - despite of their crimes - were employed again in positions of leadership with the health centre of Frankfurt/Main after 1947.
This request is supported by the president of the central committee of the Jews in Germany, Ignatz Bubis, the psychoanalyst Prof. Dr. Eberhard Richter, and the political scientist Prof. Dr. Iring Fetscher.
However, with the votes of SPD, CDU and one vote of the Republicans (Republikaner), the local advisory board Gallus decided on July 7th, 1998, to reject the request of the Roma to install the commemorative plaque with mentioning the two names. Only the parliamentary party of the "Grüne" were solidly behind the request.
Faced with this decision, the Roma Union is deeply shocked and concerned. The Union as the accepted self-help organization and representative of the victims and their children`s children can in no way understand, that obviously the personal rights of nazi-criminals are being more protected than those of the hundred thousands of Roma and Sinti, who were massacred and whose rights have been trampled on. The Union can neither follow the arguments of the local advisory board, that mentioning the names would avert from other helpers and accomplices. The opinion of the Union is, that the withholding of the names of the culprits falsifies history. In those cases, where names can be assigned unambigiously to the responsible persons, they should be published. This all the more, because the genocide of Roma and Sinti during the National Socialism and the neglected compensation of the people concerned have not been brought into the focus of the public attention until to-day.
The local advisory board 1 in Frankfurt/Main could have pointed the way to justice and responsibility by attaching the commemorative plaque to the building of the health centre of the City.