Stumbling Stones Walstraat 38

STOLPERSTEINE / STUMBLING STONES
for
* Simon Knoller, born 1883, deported 11 January 1944 from Westerbork, murdered 15 February 1945, Bergen Belsen.
* Karl Israël Knoller, born 1919, deported 11 January 1944 from Westerbork, murdered 4 December 1944, Bergen Belsen.

* Paula Knoller-Neurath, born 1880, deported 11 January 1944 from Westerbork, murdered 1 June 1944, Bergen Belsen.
* Max Blancke, born 1878, deported 20 July 1943, from Westerbork, murdered 23 July 1943, Sobibor.
* Emile Blancke-Koopman, born 1885, deported 20 July 1943, from Westerbork, murdered 23 July 1943, Sobibor.

Simon Knoller, his wife Paula and their son Karl were deported from Westerbork on the same day. They were all murdered in Bergen-Belsen -- Paula first (age 64), then Karl (age 25) and finally Simon (age 61).

Two of Simon’s five siblings also were killed in the Holocaust; two others escaped to Israel. No information on the fate of the fifth was seen. His father died before 1940. His mother was taken from her Amsterdam house and died in Westerbork in 1943 at age 88; her ashes were placed in a Jewish cemetery. No other information was seen for Paula Knoller-Neurath or their son Carl Knoller.

Max Blancke and his wife Emilie also lived at Walstraat 38. They had a son, Hans, who was released by mistake from Westerbork and survived the war in hiding. Emilie’s sister Meta Koopman was killed in Auschwitz in September 1942.

The German artist Gunter Demnig started placing the first Stolpersteine in 1997 in the Berlin's Kreuzberg district.
Meanwhile there are Stolpersteine in many countries.
It reminds the Holocaust in World War II.
A Stolperstein is a concrete stone of 10 x 10cm, with a brass plate on top, in which the name, date of birth and decease and also place of decease is punched into.
The Stolperstein gets a place in the pavement in front of the former house of the victim.
By doing this, Gunter Demnig gives a private memorial to each victim.
His motto is: 'A HUMAN BEING IS FORGOTTEN ONLY WHEN HIS OR HER NAME IS FORGOTTEN'.

Borne was the first town in the Netherlands in which Stolpersteine were placed.
This happened the 29-11-2007.

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Source

• Text: Anne Palmer
• Photos: Peter Mulder