The Tamil monument during construction (Photo: Knut Vahlensieck, Der Westen)

A sculpture to commemorate Tamil war deaths will be erected in the German town of Essen later this week, reported the German paper Der Westen.

German sculptor Georg Schaab created the12-ton granite monument at the request of German Tamils, who funded it using donations from the community.

“Many Tamils were driven away from Sri Lanka since the civil war in the 1980s and live in exile across the world,” Schaab said.

The monument is supposed to give Tamils a place to remember their war dead, particularly those who fought in the war, as Tamil cemeteries have been destroyed by the Sri Lankan state since the end of the armed conflict, the paper said.

A large flame lily, the national flower of Tamil Eelam, will be placed on top of a plinth, which has the names of 27 Thuyilam Ilam (Tamil war cemeteries) and their locations in Tamil Eelam engraved in them. The front of the plinth has the words “Damit wir nie es vergessen” (Lest we forget) engraved, both in German and in Tamil.

Small pieces of gravestones, collected at the ruins of the original war cemeteries and smuggled out of Sri Lanka by Tamils, have been attached next to each of the names, Schaab further said.

The monument will serve as memorial site for Tamils across Germany, if not Europe, he predicted, adding that he had to cross several bureaucratic hurdles during the process, including contact from the federal government.

“Initially a map of the Tamil region, the non-existent state of Tamil Eelam was included in the design for the plinth, however that was not allowed (by the state),” Schaab explained.

The monument will be erected this Saturday in a cemetery in the Essen suburb of Fulerum, two days after Maaveerar Naal will be commemorated by German Tamils a few miles away in Dortmund on the 27th of November.