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Stumbling Stones Schleidenstraße 26

These small brass memorial plaques (Stolpersteine, struikelstenen or stumbling stones) commemorate:

* Salomon Sommer, born 1880, deported 1942 to Lublin region, Zamosc, murdered.
* Betty Sommer née Mayer, born 1888, deported 1942 to Lublin region, Zamosc, murdered.

Betty Mayer and Salomon Sommer, a butcher, married and had 3 children from 1911 to 1918 – Max, Ilse, and Martha. All 3 escaped separately during the 1930s to the U.S.

Salomon Sommer joined Gustav Mayer, Betty’s brother, to run a butcher shop where Betty and Gustav’s wife also worked. Later in connection with the November pogrom, Salomon was held in Buchenwald for a month. Then in 1939, the business was forced to be sold for a few hundred Reichmarks. The Mayers completed all the documentation for emigration to Cuba, but their entry number was over the quota. They could not leave. They lived in a number of different Frankfurt locations until their deportation in, probably spring 1942. In July 1942, their children received a postcard from them in Izbica camp. They were then deported to Zamosc, where traces of them disappeared. They were declared dead.

"Stolpersteine" is an art project for Europe by Gunter Demnig to commemorate victims of National Socialism (Nazism). Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) are small, 10x10cm brass plaques placed in the pavement in front of the last voluntary residence of (mostly Jewish) victims who were murdered by the Nazis. Each plaque is engraved with the victim’s name, date of birth, and place (mostly a concentration camp) and date of death. By doing this, Gunter Demnig gives an individual memorial to each victim. One stone, one name, one person. He cites the Talmud: "A human being is forgotten only when his or her name is forgotten."

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