IN MEMORIAM GÜNTER GRASS

[Stoimen]

Günter Grass

On 13 April, author and Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass passed away in the age of 87 years. For many years, Günter Grass supported Roma and Sinti. His wife, Ute, also got engaged in the Foundation "Stiftung zugunsten des Romavolkes". Günter Grass was one of the Honorary Supporters of World Artists Initiative "Khetanes". We are grateful for his firm dedication and commitment. May his soul rest in peace!

Günter Grass was born in Dantzig on 16 October 1927. From 1946 he studied arts at the Kunstakademie Düsselforf and the Universität der Künste in West-Berlin. He was a member of the German group of writers known as group 47, whose aim was to inform and teach the German public about democracy after the Hitler era. In 1959 Günter Grass published The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel), his most famous work. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.

Long before that his interest in Romani culture made him join the Romani-P.E.N.-Club (later called Romani-PEN-Zentrum), in which Andreas Bengsh and Dr. Rajko Djuric also involved non-Roma/Sinti artists. Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Jorge Amado, Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Günter Grass all became Members.

In 1997 Günter Grass established, together with his wife Ute,  the "Stiftung zugunsten des Romavolkes", in Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein.

On 8 April 2011 Günter Grass decided to support the "Commemorating the Future Text" and with that our Artists' Initiative.