Three Stolpersteine

Almost two years ago I blogged about Stolpersteine (please click and read). Some time ago I came across three more. They are next to each other for obvious reasons.

I tried to avoid writing about them, but then these three people just would not leave my mind. For a long time I have had this picture as a thumbnail on my screen reminding me, prompting me to look into this issue again.

If you read my earlier post you will see that it is a German artist who has devoted himself to this cause.

From the information on these Stolpersteine, metal cobbles, and some internet research (just google “Chelmno” and you will see) I have come to the following conclusion:

Fanny Levison was born Leubsdorf in 1878. At the age of 28 in 1906 she gave birth to Reinhold (my educated guess). In 1941, when she was 63 years old and Reinhold was 35, they were picked up by the Nazis from where they lived in Düsseldorf and deported to the growing ghetto in Lodz, Poland. The Nazis had established this ghetto from which they systematically transported people to the nearby extermination camp in Chelmno.

Using three specially adapted Renault vans the Nazis murdered, gassed, 150,000 to 300,000 Jews, gypsies and others before they tried to get rid of all incriminating evidence of their evil activities.

11,700 Jews were deported from Lodz to Chelmno between 4 and 15 May 1942, among them Fanny Levison. But before her gruesome death in one of those gas vans, she will have experienced having a granddaughter, Chana, for roughly two months.

The little baby succumbed to starvation or some decease (another assumption) about one month after her grandmother had been murdered. Reinhold, the father, lasted another two months and a week in the horrible conditions in Lodz.

What happened to granddad? Who was the mother? What happened to her? These three sad cobblestones cannot tell us, but you do not need much imagination to understand what terrible tragedy they are evidence of.

When will mankind ever learn?

Follow The Trail

I wrote about the pilgrim trail in a previous post, but there are also more modern trails you can follow. If you look down as you walk in Liège, Belgium, you might see one of these little brass circles.

My first thought was "Oh, so he lived here! I had no idea." George Simenon, the author of the books about detective Maigret, was from Liège. I remembered watching the TV series based on his books many moons ago in Sweden.

I instantly recognised Maigret's trademark pipe and hat, and I also understood that the small arrow was pointing in the direction you ought to walk if you wanted to get to the next place of interest. Putting down little markers like these is a simple but clever way of both leading people along the trail and bringing it to the attention of somebody who happens to come across it, like in my case.

We never had time to follow the trail, but we did find Mr Maigret sitting on a bench. Looked like he had been sitting there for a while, possibly trying to find a solution to a particularly tricky case.

Set in Stone

The attraction of window shopping and people watching sometimes works against the intentions of city planners and architects. When I took all the photographs of the floor in this particular shopping mall in Düsseldorf many passers-by looked at me in astonishment wondering what I was up to. In the Kö Galerie in Königsallee the floor has been adorned with brass plaques commemorating famous people with a Düsseldorf connection. I have never ever seen anybody stop and read what it says on the plaques.

They are spread out in a symmetrical pattern throughout the cross-shaped mall. I do not know the exact number, but I have chosen my Famous Four to show you.

 

(From Wikipedia)

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (13 December 1797 in Düsseldorf – 17 February 1856 in Paris) was a journalist, essayist, and one of the most significant German romantic poets. He is remembered chiefly for selections of his lyric poetry, many of which were set to music in the form of lieder (art songs) by German composers

Paul Klee (IPA: [kleː]) (18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss painter of German nationality.

...Klee also taught at the Düsseldorf Academy from 1931 to 1933...

Robert Schumann,^[1] sometimes given as Robert Alexander Schumann,^[2] (8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856) was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is one of the most famous Romantic composers of the 19th century.

In 1850 Schumann succeeded Ferdinand Hiller as musical director at Düsseldorf, but he was a poor conductor and quickly aroused the opposition of the musicians.

Clara Josephine Wieck (September 13, 1819 – May 20, 1896) was a German musician, one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, as well as a composer. Her prestige — she became known as "the high priestess of music" — exerted over a 61-year concert career, changed the format and repertoire of the piano concert and the tastes of the listening public. Her husband was composer Robert Schumann. After her marriage she was known as Clara Schumann, however she had achieved considerable fame prior to her marriage, as Clara Wieck.

 

 

Stumbling Blocks

Walking along the pavement of the famous Königsallé in Düsseldorf I saw two metal cobbles next to each other. I had to bend down to take a closer look and see if there was any inscription. Yes there was, and it revealed the names of two people who had lived there; they were not famous people, but people who somebody wanted to remind the world about. The message was instantly clear to even a non-German speaker.

The place names on Hulda Hornstein's cobble were all too familiar. When I researched the names on Walter Erle's cobble I found out that Heilanstalt Grafenberg was a mental hospital on the outskirts of Düsseldorf and Hadamar was a similar place a little further away which was part of the Nazi euthanasia program between 1941 and 1944. Out of more than 5000 Jews, only 57 returned after the war to Düsseldorf.

I also found out that these cobbles or blocks are called "Stolpersteine" (stumbling blocks) and that there are more than 100 of them all across the pavements of Düsseldorf, and they are part of an art project by Cologne-based artist Günter Demnig.

These chilling reminders of past history are today at the feet of all the Christmas shoppers in Königsallé with its posh, up-market establishments. With all the brightly-lit shop windows, does anybody look down long enough to discover these shiny "Stumbling Blocks"?

For more information:

www.stolpersteine.com

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolpersteine

On The Right(eous) Way

Signposting is not always easy, and it never was. How did our ancestors find the way when they travelled long distances? They could follow a river or the coastline, aim for some hills or mountains or walk along a winding path. But if they travelled over land in particular, and they had many days or weeks ahead of them, how did they find the way? They would most likely be dependant on guides or people who pointed at an object on the horizon.

For the pilgrims of the past there were markers on the ground that led them on the right way, to the next cathedral or perhaps even to Santiago de Compostela.  Scallop shells on the ground would guide them, eventually all the way to, what is supposed to be, the relics of St. James. Still today you can find metal markers in the shape of a scallop shell in many European villages, towns and cities. This one I spotted in Liège, Belgium.

Child Danger in Düsseldorf

How often do you look down when you are on the tourist trail or just visiting a place for the first time, or indeed in your own neighbourhood? Most of the time we look ahead or possibly slightly up. We look at people, buildings and the sky, and only check occasionally where we put our feet. We don't very often look down unless we are botanists searching for some rare species or have a fear of stepping in dog faeces.

I have started looking at what is in front of my feet as well sometimes, and to my amazement there is quite a lot to discover in various cities. I have come across all sorts of ornamental metal objects like manhole covers, trail markers and remembrance plaques. I thought I would share those with my readers, and so far I have assembled a small collection, which I hope will keep growing with time.

My first piece of street art, if you like, is a manhole cover in Düsseldorf. It informs you that it is the capital city (of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia) and also displays the coat of arms. What is puzzling is the fact that two children are doing a one-armed handstand on said coat of arms, or are they doing cartwheels? I don't know.

The more drastic interpretation is of course that it is meant to be a warning to children not to play in the street, otherwise they might end up flattened by a car or a bus! On a more serious note though, I think of the length they have gone to to make an entrance to the sewers rather attractive. What do you think?