Menen - Stolpersteine

Information: Wikipedia

A Stolperstein literally "stumbling stone", metaphorically a "stumbling block" is a sett-size, 10 by 10 centimetres (3.9 in × 3.9 in) concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution.

 

The Stolpersteine project, initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, aims to commemorate individuals at exactly the last place of residency—or, sometimes, work—which was freely chosen by the person before he or she fell victim to Nazi terror, euthanasia, eugenics, was deported to a concentration or extermination camp, or escaped persecution by emigration or suicide. As of 29 March 2018, over 67,000 Stolpersteine have been laid in 22 countries, making the Stolpersteine project the world's largest decentralized memorial.

 

The majority of Stolpersteine commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Others have been placed for Sinti and Romani people (then also called "gypsies"), homosexuals, the physically or mentally disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, black people, members of the Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the anti-Nazi Resistance, the Christian opposition (both Protestants and Catholics), and Freemasons, along with International Brigade soldiers in the Spanish Civil War, military deserters, conscientious objectors, escape helpers, capitulators, "habitual criminals", looters, and others charged with treason, military disobedience, or undermining the Nazi military, as well as Allied soldiers.

 

List of Stolpersteine in the city of Menen

Rijselstraat 260: GIZELA KLEINBARTOVA


Rijselstraat 260

hier woonde

GIZELA

KLEINBARTOVA

geb. 1916

gedeporteerd 1942

Auschwitz

vermoord 28.9.1942

Rijselstraat 260

here lived

GIZELA

KLEINBARTOVA

born 1916

deported 1942

Auschwitz

murdered 28.9.1942

Gizela Kleinbartova was born on February 22, 1916 in Raskovin in the north of the Czech Republic. “After her mother died, she left the parental home with her older sister Laura. They arrived in Antwerp on March 26, 1933,” Marc recalls. “Gizela worked as a maid for her uncle and later went on to work for diamond merchant Arthur Gluck and Ludwig Morice, also a diamond merchant. After her residence permit was not extended, she went to the Netherlands for a while, but she came back to Antwerp. She probably felt that the ground was getting too hot for the Jews and in early October 1939 she applied for a travel pass for England. However, she continued to live in Antwerp until the end of February 1941. Then she moved to Menen. Maybe she moved closer to the border to make it easier to flee to France.”

 

Gizela found shelter in the house in Rijselstraat 262, where she was arrested in 1942. “After her arrest, the Germans transferred her to the Dossin barracks in Mechelen. On September 26, 1942, she left our country, on Transport XI, with 1,772 Jews for Auschwitz. On arrival, the Nazis gassed almost all the people in her convoy, only 30 men were spared. Gizela was murdered on September 28, 1942, when she was 26 years old.”