Stumbling Stones Hans-Prodinger-Straße 19 (prevously 19 Schlachthofgasse / 15 Rainerstraße)

These memorial stones (Stolpersteine or stumbling blocks) commemorate:
* Abraham Morpurgo, born 1882, fled to Holland 1938, interned at Westerbork, deported 1942 Auschwitz, murdered 26 January 1943.
* Edith Morpurgo, born 1912, fled to Holland 1938, interned at Westerbork, deported 1942 Auschwitz, murdered 31 August 1942.
* Hermine Bechinsky née Stein, born 1861, deported 18 May 1942 Theresienstadt, murdered 30 April 1943.

Abraham Morpurgo, a Dutch citizen, and Elsa Klein married in 1911 in the Salzburg synagogue. Their daughter Edith was born the next year. He was a businessman in Salzburg until 1938 when the Morpurgos were expelled from their property and they fled to Amsterdam in June. The next year in Amsterdam, Edith married David Essinger (who had fled from Munich to Holland). The Essingers had two children, born in 1940 and 1942. Edith was deported and murdered in Auschwitz the same day as her husband and their 2-year-old daughter Eveline. (Their son René was sheltered and saved by a Dutch family.) Else Morpurgo died in Amsterdam, shortly after their daughter Edith was deported and murdered.

Hermine Bechinsky was a widow who lived with her daughter Ella Fuchs and Ella’s non-Jewish husband Otto Fuchs at this address. Her daughter and son-in-law managed to survive. Hermine fled to Czechoslovakia in 1938. The Germans then conquered that country in 1939. Three years later, Hermine was deported to Theresienstadt, where she survived another year before she was murdered at age 81.

"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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Source

• Text: Fedor de Vries & Anne Palmer
• Photos: John Mark Shorack (1), Eweht (2)
• Stolpersteine Salzburg
• Stolpersteine.eu