Stolpersteine

1 June 2009

In Hamburg, we are guests of Alexis' employers, staying in their large home in a lovely residential district that is in the heart of the city. The houses here are stately multistory units that stand contiguously along quiet, tree-lined avenues. The nearest station accessing Hamburg's excellent metro system is only a few blocks away. The Alster is also close by, offering recreational opportunities. We've walked 10 minutes each morning to bakeries to buy fresh German bread. Ingrid and I also enjoyed a superb Indian dinner last night at a restaurant that was only a 15 minute walk from this house.

It is incomprehensible to think that it was not many decades ago -- really only an eye blink in the span of human history -- when the horrors of the Jewish genocide were occurring in Europe. And these terrors were not happening in some vague, across the Atlantic, far away, alien Europe. No, in fact, lives were destroyed among those living here in this neighborhood.

"Stolpersteine" is German for "stumbling block." It is also the name of a project of artist Gunter Demnig as a way to commemorate the holocaust. It is being carried out by creating and placing small bronze plaques on sidewalks in front of houses where Jews lived who were destroyed by the Holocaust.

The other pictures in this post show three of the many stolpersteine that I have seen walking around this neighborhood in Hamburg. The project is an international effort and apparently Demnig has placed 13,000 (as of late 2007) of these plaques in 280 cities. And this is a tiny fraction of the number of lives destroyed in the Holocaust.

The first of these has this translation: "Here lived Werner Glückstadt. Year of birth 1925. Deported 1942 from Drancy. Murdered in Auschwitz." [Drancy was a transit camp located outside of Paris.]