Stumbling stones in Offenbach
"A person is only forgotten when his name is forgotten", says the Talmud. Offenbach is now home to over 233 of the more than one hundred thousand Stolpersteine that Cologne-based artist Gunther Demnig has laid in 1,800 communities across Europe since 1996 to commemorate the victims of Nazi terror.
The brass plates are ten by ten centimetres in size and can be found on sidewalks in many places in Europe, including Offenbach, of course. They mark the empty spaces left behind by National Socialism. The very houses in which people persecuted by the Nazi regime lived until they were forced to emigrate or were deported and murdered. Persecuted because they were Jews, Roma, Sinti, trade unionists, communists, Jehovah's Witnesses or physically or mentally handicapped. Those who stop at the Stumbling Stones learn who lived at the address in question, no more than a name, date of birth and, if available, date of death or brief information about their whereabouts.
Any citizen can have such a stone placed, for example for a Jewish family from the neighborhood that was deported and murdered. Companies, associations or school classes can become sponsors of a Stolperstein and thus commemorate a former pupil of the school, for example. It is also possible to support the project financially without having a proposal of your own. The Geschichtswerkstatt has a list of other names for this purpose. A stumbling block costs 120 euros.
It is not always easy to find out about the people concerned and their lives. The Geschichtswerkstatt is therefore looking for people from the surrounding area and neighborhood who can tell something about the people, also from stories told by parents and grandparents.
If you would like to become a sponsor for a Stumbling Stone, have suggestions for further Stumbling Stones or can pass on knowledge or information about persecuted people from Offenbach, please contact:
Barbara Leissing - Offenbacher Str. 81, 63165 Mühlheim
Tel.: 06108 / 82 49 05, e-mail: leissingbgmailcom
The Stumbling Stones project is supported by the Offenbach district executive of Ver.di
Arolsen Archives - International Center on Nazi Persecution
Many more deceased people are waiting to be rescued from oblivion. The collection of the Arolsen Archives International Center on Nazi Persecution contains information on around 17.5 million people from the various victim groups of the Nazi regime. A large proportion of the approximately 30 million documents are now available in the Arolsen Archives online archive. The number of searchable names and keywords is growing continuously.
Would you like to help improve the online archive? With the crowdsourcing initiative #everynamecounts, you can digitally record the names and dates of historical documents that have already been scanned so that they can be found in the online archive in the future.
