Melanie Spitta

{{Short description|Sinti and German film-maker (1946–2005)}}

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Melanie Spitta (1946 – 28 August 2005; sometimes recorded as Melanie Splita){{cite web |last1= |first1= |title=Splita, Melanie |url=https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd1061904210.html?language=en |website=www.deutsche-biographie.de |publisher=Deutsche Biographie |access-date=15 April 2024 |language=de}}{{cite web |title=Splita, Melanie |url=https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?method=simpleSearch&cqlMode=true&query=nid%3D1061904210 |website=DNB, Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek |access-date=15 April 2024}} was a German Sinti film-maker.{{cite web |title=Melanie Spitta |url=https://iffr.com/en/persons/melanie-spitta |website=iffr.com |publisher=International Film Festival Rotterdam |access-date=14 April 2024 |date=2024}}

She was born in 1946 in Hasselt, Belgium, in a Sinti family, and died on 28 August 2005 in Frankfurt, Germany.{{cite web |title=Melanie Spitta |url=https://www.filmportal.de/person/melanie-spitta_87484ccf7c3a46c5a2270c8a5db7df04 |website=www.filmportal.de |access-date=14 April 2024}} Her family had moved from Germany in 1938 in an attempt to escape persecution by the Nazis, but her six siblings died in Auschwitz concentration camp, where her mother was also imprisoned but survived, with damaged health.{{cite web |last1= |title=Bio-Filmographie Melanie Spitta |url=http://www.arche.or.at/conf/spitta.htm |website=ARCHE |access-date=15 April 2024 |language=de |date=1999}} The family later moved to Düren in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

In her film-making and other activism she worked to reveal the Nazi genocide of the Sinti and other Romani people.{{cite web |title=Film evening "Es ging Tag und Nacht, liebes Kind (It went day and night, dear child)" |url=https://www.roma-sinti-holocaust-memorial-day.eu/remembrance/film-evening-es-ging-tag-und-nacht-liebes-kind-it-went-day-and-night-dear-child/ |website=European Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti und Roma |access-date=14 April 2024 |date=28 July 2020}} In 1999 she was awarded the Otto Pankok Prize, inaugurated by Günter Grass in memory of his teacher Otto Pankok.{{cite web |title=RNN / Filmmaker Melanie Spitta Wins Otto Pankok Prize |url=https://groups.google.com/g/misc.activism.progressive/c/356ymV4Tjgw?pli=1 |website=groups.google.com |publisher=RomNews Network |access-date=14 April 2024 |date=7 December 1999}}{{cite journal |last1=Grass |first1=Günter |title=True Europeans |journal=Index on Censorship |date=July 1998 |volume=27 |issue=4 |pages=51–53 |doi=10.1080/03064229808536386 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064229808536386 |language=en |issn=0306-4220|url-access=subscription }}{{cite book |last1=Swoboda |first1=Hannes |last2=Wiersma |first2=Jan Marinus |editor1-last=Flašíková-Beňová |editor1-first=Monika |editor2-last=Swoboda |editor2-first=Hannes |editor3-last=Wiersma |editor3-first=Jan Marinus |title=Roma: A European Minority The Challenge of Diversity |page=28 |url=https://www.socialistsanddemocrats.eu/sites/default/files/3693_EN_SD_Roma_book_0.pdf |access-date=14 April 2024 |chapter=A Blind Spot in the Consciousness of Europe: Interview with Günter Grass |isbn=978-92-823-3375-4|publisher=European Union: Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament |quote=Melanie Spitta, who was awarded the Otto-Pankok prize}}

Her film Das Falsche Wort{{cite web |title=Gesellschaft für Antiziganismusforschung e.V. |url=https://www.antiziganismusforschung.de/veranstaltung/melanie-spitta-das-falsche-wort-filmvorfuehrung-gespraech/ |website=www.antiziganismusforschung.de |access-date=14 April 2024 |language=de-DE |date=1 October 2023}} is in the permanent collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,{{cite web |title=Sinti Persecution |url=https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1001680 |website=collections.ushmm.org |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=14 April 2024}} and her work was included in the online World Roma Congress Art Exhibition in 2021.{{cite web |title=World Roma Congress Art Exhibition |url=https://www.romaniarts.co.uk/world-roma-congress-art-exhibition/ |publisher=Romani Cultural & Arts Company |access-date=14 April 2024 |date=2021}} Her 1981 film, Es ging Tag und Nacht, liebes Kind (It went day and night, dear child), made with {{ill|Katrin Seybold|de}}, covered the night of 2-3 August 1944 when the last Sinti and Roma prisoners in Auschwitz-Birkenau were killed in the gas chambers. Spitta and Seybold also made the 1981 film We are Sinti Children and Not Gypsies, which is available on Mubi.{{cite web |title=We are Sinti Children and Not Gypsies (1981) |url=https://mubi.com/en/gb/films/we-are-sinti-children-and-not-gypsies |publisher=Mubi |access-date=14 April 2024 |language=en}}