For the first time in the city’s history, the famous Memorial Stones have been installed in Poznań. The small paving stones with brass plaques commemorate Abraham and Esther Waksztok, former residents of the capital of Wielkopolska. They have been incorporated into the pavement at 14 Wrocławska Street and are intended to remind us of the fate of the Holocaust victims.
Stones of Remembrance as symbolic commemoration
The Memorial Stones, also known as Stolpersteine, are an initiative of German artist Günter Demnig. Each cube contains the details of a person whose life was cut short by the Holocaust. They are usually placed in front of the buildings where the commemorated lived. On Thursday 21 August, they also appeared for the first time in Poznań. The installation took place under the supervision of the City Roads Authority.
The story of the Waksztok family
The married couple Abraham and Estera Waksztok arrived in Poznań around 1932 to provide their son with better educational conditions. They settled on Wrocławska Street. During the Second World War they were deported to the ghetto in Kutno. Abraham died there of typhus and Esther lost her life in the camp in Chełmno nad Nerem.
Descendants’ memories
During the ceremony, a letter was read out from Nir Bar-On, a great-grandson of Abraham and Esther, who had planned to come to Poznan but was unable to attend the event due to the situation in Israel. In the letter, he stressed the importance of commemorating his ancestors in this very city. He wrote about the family’s special connection to Poznań, about photographs showing them walking along the streets and about the excitement of finding the address of their former home.
The road to realisation
The event was initiated by Nir Bar-On, who got in touch with Anna Gutkowska from the Drugie Pokolenie Association. The organisation brings together descendants of Holocaust victims and works to preserve the memory of the dead. Thanks to the cooperation with the association and the city authorities, it was possible to import the stones from Germany. Initially, the installation was to be carried out by Günter Demnig himself, but due to his illness, local institutions took over the task.
The Stones of Remembrance and the meaning ofpresence
The first Stones of Remembrance in Poznan is an important step in perpetuating the memory of the city’s former inhabitants and let’s hope it is not the last.
“I hope that there will be more of them. It is very fortunate that today we can commemorate these people who died. Thanks to this, their names can exist in our relationships, in our conversations” – admits Alicja Kobus, President of the Jewish Community in Poznan
European Network of Remembrance
The Remembrance Stones, called Stolpersteins by Demnig, are already located in many European cities. In Poland more than 130 of them have been placed. The first one was installed in Wrocław and commemorates Edith Stein, a philosopher of Jewish origin, later canonised by the Catholic Church. Other stones are located in Lublin, Łódź, Sanok and Zgorzelec, among others. We wrote about the first Warsaw Stolpersteins HERE.
source: poznan.pl
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