Stolpersteine in Schöneberg

Its been a while. Jackie promises to update soon on what's happened in the last year. This is just a blog entry...

Stolperstein means 'stumbling stone' in English. Its an art project started in 1996 by Gunter Demnig, a sculptor from Cologn (Kölln). They are little metal (Bronz?) plaques, 10cm x 10cm in size, that are placed on the sidewalk in front of houses around Germany. They commemorate the arrest of people from their homes by the nazis. These little metal plaques tell a story of families taken from their homes, brought together in large groups, and murdered.

Around 4000 Stolpersteine have been placed in Germany so far (which represents about 0.1% of the victims). There are 35 in our neighborhood. Just around the corner from us, in a place I just discovered last week while coming home from bringing the girls to kindergarten, there are four Stolpersteine arranged in a 2x2 square at the entrance to a unimposing apartment complex on Barbarossa Strasse. The names on the 'stones' are as follows:

Barbarossastr. 8
Herbert Tawrigowski, genannt Friedländer
Elsa Tawrigowski, genannt Friedländer
Gerhard Tawrigowki, genannt Friedländer
Bella Tawrigowki, genannt Friedländer
(I guess that means they changed their name to Friedländer)
I found this on the website: http://www.berlin.de/ba-tempelhof-schoeneberg/derbezirk/wissenswertes/stolperstein.html which tells you where all the Stolpersteine are in Schöneberg.

What it doesn't say is that Herbert and Elsa were parents of Gerhard, 9, and Bella, 2, or that they were murdered in Auschwitz in 1943, or that they were fleeing when they were caught. Herbert and Elsa were 41 and 38, the same age as Jackie and me. The website also tells that five more Tawrigowski's were caught, one in "An der Urania 16-18", and 4 at the Hotel President. Most of these stumbling stones were donated by Frau Vera Friedländer, likely a relative of the murdered.

To the left, we can see Barbarossa Strasse, and a poster for the green party. Elections are coming up. On the sign post are adds for apartments wanted, yoga classes, an anniversary party for a little used clothes store down the street.

So, I'm taking *my* kids to kindergarten along a path that crosses the site where some other kids, some 60 odd years ago, were taken from their homes and, along with their mother and father, aunts and uncles, together gassed or shot or experimented-on-to-death.

That could have been us.

I have no words to describe the feeling. It's too close to home both literally and figuratively. Its just around the corner from us.

There are two little square divits in the concrete walk at the front of our apartment building, about the size of a Stolperstein. I think to myself, perhaps a couple were put here, then someone who didn't relish the idea of harboring ghosts of a shameful past dug them up and threw them out. But the website shows no stones on Eisenacher Strasse. Actually, it's a relief.

They say that no more than 20% of the buildings in Berlin were destroyed during the war, though this is hard to believe when you see the airial views of post war Berlin. It looks completely devastated. But I guess a lot could and has been patched up, instead of completely torn down and rebuilt. I wonder whether our apartment building existed before the war. The facade is obviously from a time well after 1945, but who knows, maybe it was just patched up. Who lived in our flat? Who was pulled out against their will on a cold night in the middle of winter; or worse who called the local geheimdienst to report a jew hiding in the next apartment? We know a few old ladys here who would easily fit the latter profile. Its easy to imagine.

We learned early on during our stay here that the normal German folk don't especially dig discussing this topic. Its understandable.