Stumble-Stones
Michael Rice
“Ella,†wrote my grandmother about her daughter, my aunt, in 1946, “attained a human greatness in the two years in Theresienstadt: she radiated an all-encompassing goodness, a true light – and was entirely unconscious of it. Ill and broken people built themselves up at her side, and she was always wherever things were most desolate, most dirty, and most dangerous – without a sense of self-sacrifice, quite simply, matter-of-factly, cheerfully, and entirely unembittered” (my translation). They had chosen to stay behind in the Germany my mother and I could finally leave for America in April 1941, so that Ella could carry on her work helping Jews emigrate. In July 1942 they were deported to the concentration camp. Ella was among those transported from there to Auschwitz in October 1944 and gassed. My grandmother volunteered to leave the camp that December (expecting to be reunited with her daughter) in what turned out to be a Red Cross organized trade of trucks for Jews, and landed in Switzerland.
A February 2006 phone call from Germany advised me that at the end of April a Stolperstein – literally, a stumble-stone – would be inserted into the sidewalk in front of my birth house, the last home of my aunt Ella, as a memorial to her. I could learn more about this project at stolpersteine.com It was notice enough for me to catch the last frequent-flyer spot on a flight that would take me to Stuttgart on April 27 and back again on April 30.
“Stolpersteine are 10 cm concrete cubes furnished with a brass plate and set into public sidewalks in such a way that no one can come to harm by them. And nevertheless they are called stumble-stones, for those who see them in passing should stumble in their spirit, pause briefly, and read the inscription. A piece of history is thus brought into our everyday lives directly in front of the victim’s dwelling, under the heading ‘here lived …’ Stolpersteine are intended as tokens of memory, to bring the victims out of their anonymity in the place where they lived.†Thus wrote the Cologne artist Gunter Demnig, who originated the concept. Since November 2000, he has manufactured and cemented into holes cut into sidewalks over 5,500 such stones in cities throughout Germany, with the support and funding by local committees.
Demnig writes: “Nothing is worse than collective silence. But fortunately there are people who confront history and have taken on the task to name the crimes of fascism. The deportation of victims took place from neighborhoods; each person had a name and a living place. This is again made visible by the local Stolpersteine groups.â€
I did not know what to expect when I traveled to my old home. To my great pleasure, the elderly owners of the house, whom I had first met there thirty years ago, were still in good health, still there with a daughter and granddaughter, and pleased at the prospect of the stumble-stone. So at 8:30 on a Saturday morning I appeared on the sidewalk and was surrounded by more than twenty local citizens (including Mme. Mayor of the Stuttgart suburb of Degerloch). One had brought three tulips. Most were over 60, except the granddaughter of the current owners and the young psychiatrist who, as the technology-capable member of the local group did the email correspondence, and a young American woman, five years resident in Stuttgart and attracted by the newspaper announcement of the event. They were very grateful that I had come. My own spirit was healed by the stone, by Gunter Demnig, and by the caring of so many other Germans.Â
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Michael Rice is La Madre’s father.
A touching story. For some reason, I especially like the picture of the craftsman bending over the sidewalk, working. It seems so much more human than donut-eating construction workers draped in orange vests who seem to come in packs of ten, even for a five-minute job.
The mention of Thereisenstadt caught my eye. I saw a very interesting documentary about it last year called Prisoner of Paradise. It was written, produced and directed by Malcolm Clarke, the father of one of my classmates at Deerfield and the speaker at my graduation. You can read his very entertaining and thoughtful speech at http://www.deerfieldalumni.org, click on publications, then on speeches, and his is the second or third down (the stupid site uses frames and so deep-linking is not possible).
Comment by pesky godson — May 29, 2006 @ 10:01 am
I find Stumble-Stones almost too poignant to comment on. And, as if the story weren’t powerful enough, I’m also more than moved by the two accompanying photos . The bent-over craftsman using simple tools and buckets of cement. The bright tulips which will soon wilt and die. Thanks Jennifer/Michael.
All right, trite as it may read, I have to say it. Could there be a more simple and elegant memorial?
Maybe because I’m a minority of frames lovers, and I was privileged to hear Malcolm’s speech at Pesky’s graduation, here is the direct link.
Comment by michael — May 29, 2006 @ 10:36 am
A well-told tale and a well-devised memorial — its energy arguably reinforced rather than diffused by its stripped simplicity and wide dissemination. What a simple but powerful evocation of lives lost, touchstoning the locations of their last willing engagements with this plane. They were of those places, like so many others. They were everywhere.
Thanks for going, and for bringing back the tale!
Comment by adam — May 29, 2006 @ 12:36 pm
“They had chosen to stay behind”…
This is so lovely and moving.
Comment by La Rad — May 29, 2006 @ 5:42 pm
So beautifully European in conception and completion. The only comparable thing I’ve seen in the USA is brass plaques commemorating nature lovers in parks and wildlife areas. But of course, these stolperstein plaques are more serious commemorations of people sacrificed to the holocaust.
And the web site behind the first link in stolpersteine.com is as elegant as the stolpersteine concept itself!
Comment by rakkity — May 29, 2006 @ 9:11 pm
Michael may know the answer to this conumdrum raised by pesky godson: In a website with frames, is there some way to add commands to the URL using symbols like ?, %, #, etc to send the browser to the specific contents of a sub-frame? (My summer student insists on using frames in his website, and I haven’t figured out how to make bookmarks that go directly to his web collections.)
Comment by rakkity — May 29, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
I just want to comment on “My grandmother volunteered to leave the camp that December (expecting to be reunited with her daughter) in what turned out to be a Red Cross organized trade of trucks for Jews, and landed in Switzerland.” What he means there is that my great-grandmother expected to be reunited with her daughter in death. I suppose some teeny of her hoped otherwise — but no part of her hoped for what in fact happened.
rakkity: I hadn’t checked out the stolpersteine website since I assumed it was in German … it is, so, do you read German or do you simply recognize elegance in any language? Having checked the website, you already know the answer to what I had to ask my father: Was Demnig the man in the photo? (Clearly yes.)
Thanks pg for connecting to this in another way; I haven’t yet had a chance to listen to it, but I will when I come back up for air. (21 more days of school for me.)
Comment by La Madre — May 29, 2006 @ 10:20 pm
Open the frame and then control click > open frame in new window. You’ll then have a webpage with a real clickable address. You can do the same thing with images (control click) if you want to isolate the image from the page.
And La Madre : http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
Comment by michael — May 29, 2006 @ 10:29 pm
Thanks, Mike.
And to La Madre, yes I read a little German (about 75%), but the style of the site goes beyond language. Each page is on its own stolperstein embedded in a granite sidewalk.
Comment by rakkity — May 30, 2006 @ 9:57 am
What a moving and well-told story, Jennifer. Thank your father and thank you.
Comment by Sister K — May 31, 2006 @ 5:31 pm