Important Reminders of History
How travel taught me more than my public education did about the Holocaust
An evening stroll on the final night of my group trip to Italy would turn into a history lesson that would stay with me for the rest of my life.
While navigating the tight Venice alleyways on our way to the farewell dinner, our guide Massimo would stop and point something out that most of us would have merely walked by without ever noticing. A small golden stone placed neatly in the cobblestone walkway. Seemingly blending in until you trip over it. Because unlike the regular cobblestone, they are raised ever so slightly.
With a closer look you will see more information. “Qui Abitava” is Italian for “He lived here” with the name of a person who once resided in the home the stones are laid in front of. Each stone represents a person who was taken by the nazis during the Holocaust. “Nato” in Italian translates to “born” meaning the year they were born. Occasionally there will be birth dates on some of the stones as well.
It would then show where the nazis deported them to, and sadly the last line would be what happened to those souls. Unfortunately, for the bulk that I have come across the fate was being assassinated by the nazis.
Our guide explained the art project behind the Stumbling Stones, but it was too late for me… I was already down the rabbit hole of wanting to know anything and everything about these and the history that they provide. This blurb is from the website explaining and mapping all the locations you can find stones across Europe.
The STOLPERSTEINE (stumbling stones) memorial project is a remembrance project by German artist Gunter Demnig that has gained international attention since founded in 1996. It is the most compelling, personal, moving memorial one could imagine as it names the individuals and cites their date of birth, date of deportation, date of death or destiny. Located at the entrances of buildings that were the last freely chosen home of the individual named on the STOLPERSTEINE, the observer is literally on the threshold of the lives of these people led until they were torn out.To emphasize the personal connection and the incredible pervasiveness of the project, STOLPERSTEINE: STORIES THROUGH GENERATIONS brings the stories of several Canadian families alive through the strong narrative of audio interviews and private family images. The goal is to preserve the memory and the deeply moving personal stories and insights for future generations as well as to act as an access point for further education and discussion. The oral histories provide glimpses that cannot be obtained from documents or written records. They supplement the cultural and historical archives with intimate personal memories and documents and reclaim a lost world through the power of stories.
Our society doesn’t have the daily reminder of the mass amounts of people murdered during World War II, and that is one of the most unfortunate parts about what is happening in America as we speak. The ignorance is fueling the same rhetoric Hitler came to power with. Sadly, all of the outrage and claims are mere misinformation from outside enemies benefitting from the chaos they are causing within our election.
The nazi playbook is being actively used in America in real time and we are pretending like we haven’t seen this before.
Since discovering these stones on that second trip… I have made it my mission in my free time to discover as many Stumbling Stones as I can in every city that I travel to. The interactive map on their website has been helpful but honestly I am not really sure why but I can find them best when just wandering around like a tourist. The amount I found in Amsterdam while I was just wandering around exploring was absolutely jolting.
I wish I could include every last stone that I have come across in this post but there are just so many. I’ve picked a couple of my favorites. One especially out of the batch from Rome. All the way in the top row all the way to the right.
Let’s take a better look.
“Liberato” in Italian translates to “freed” in English. This is the only stone to date that I have found of a survivor. Out of three countries I’ve searched for them in… and successfully found tons… this was the only one.
Benedetto Di Degni.
From Norway to Italy, and the Netherlands especially. Merely walking in the area around the Anne Frank House you are able to find tons. Speaking of the Anne Frank house, I just wanted to share a couple photos of it and the surrounding area, as well as a map of how the building was set up. Unfortunately, there are no photos allowed inside once on the tour.
The middle photograph in the top row is what the house currently looks like. The doors there where you now enter would be the buildings to the sides of the original “Anne Frank House” which was inside of the Opekta Company’s business. Owned by Otto Frank, which he started upon moving to The Netherlands in 1933.
If you don’t recall the story of Anne Frank, I implore you with everything plaguing our world right now… go back and read it again. Learn the story. Remember all of those souls. Not just Anne Frank and her family but the thens of millions of people that were murdered merely for who they were. Who they worshipped. The religion they choose to live. Or who they choose to love.
The nazis are no different from the Republicans today rallying on mass deportations and calling political enemies or Americans vermin or the enemy from within. Trump advisor Steven Miller quoted Hitler on stage Sunday night at Madison Square Garden when he said “America is for Americans.” Except he just switched out the country to update it to the new version of fascism.
Hilter famously was quoted saying “Germany is for Germans and Germans only.” Sounds super familiar. I wonder where we all could have heard that recently? Come the fuck on already people!
I guess at the end of the day my lone point is… if we don’t wake up soon. It’s all going to be too late. And the next sidewalk memorials for the dead are going to be your loved ones, friends, and community members.
Don’t let history repeat itself again.
We learned about the Holocaust in elementary school. Movies of actual events, furnaces and piles of bodies of people who were killed in gas chambers. This was during a time when they weren't afraid to expose children to traumatic and gruesome images or written history. I knew more about slavery and the civil rights movement than most people of color I knew because of the public school I attended. I am grateful that I was not shrouded from it.
About the Holocaust, I had never met anyone, until I was an adult, who was imprisoned in a concentration camp and I found out purely by observation. Everyone called him "Hunky Steve" and he spoke with a Hungarian accent. I had known him for a few years already and I had never paid close enough attention to tattoos he had until we were sitting across the table from each other and he rolled up his sleeves while we were talking and the tattoo on his forearm caught my eye. I grabbed his hand and flipped his arm over and I said "is this what I think it is?", he just gave me a crooked smile and a nod and the tears just started streaming down my face. He grasped both of my hands and said "Oh honey, it was a very long time ago and I was too young to remember it". That didn't stop the tears because he lost his entire family to Hitler's gas chambers and death camps.
Steve passed away a while ago and I didn't find out until long after he was gone. That was a funeral I would have walked to if I knew. He was a very sweet and humble man and I had the pleasure of calling him a friend even before I knew. Thanks for educating people about this because there are way too many people that weren't as fortunate to learn about this in school or they deny that it ever happened even with all of the documented evidence out there.
I had absolutely no idea this was a thing... thank you so much for highlighting these in such great detail for us... We are not going back...