After his visit to Haarlem, the German artist Gunter Demnig traveled on to Amstelveen to lay the first ‘Stolpersteine’ here on Good Friday. That is a victory for relatives of war victims from Amstelveen, because mayor Tjapko Poppens initially did not want the stones in his city.
Poppens turned down two applications from Ronald Vecht, who wanted to place the small memorial for Fred Ashner’s parents and grandmother. The reason for this was the choice of the municipality to 166 killed war victims to commemorate in a central place, in the form of a name monument.
After a fuss among relatives, the mayor gave the green light. The municipality of Amstelveen now even finances 42 stumbling blocks for victims without next of kin. For four addresses (a total of 13 stones), relatives and those involved have submitted applications on their own initiative to the Stolpersteine Foundation. In total, this concerns 55 stumbling blocks at 22 addresses. The first 25 stones were laid by the German inventor himself on Friday.
Text continues. Note: The map below shows where the stones were placed last Friday. The icons refer to the streets where the stones are located, not the exact location.
The Stolpersteine, or stumbling stones, are placed on the sidewalk in front of houses where Nazi victims have lived. The individual memorial consists of a stone with a brass plate on which the birth and death data of the victims are engraved.
The initiator for the 42 subsidized stones is the doctor Linda Dekhuijzen, who grew up in Amstelveen. She has done a lot of research into the origin of the victims. Dekhuijzen hopes that more applications will be made, so that all 166 Jewish war victims will soon have one.
First stones for family Philip
Gunter Demnig placed the very first stumbling blocks in Amstelveen at Van der Veerelaan 8 in the Elsrijk district. Iwan Philip (died at age 72), Max Philip (died at age 31) and Louise Philip – Marcus (died at age 66) lived here. Max was the son of Iwan and Louise.
The Jewish family was originally from Hamburg, according to information gathered for the project ‘Never come back’ of the Amstelveen Oranje foundation. Son Paul Wolgang never lived with the family in Amstelveen. He lived in Amsterdam and survived the war.
Paul was eventually told that his parents had been deported to Sobibor on 11 May 1943. They were gassed there on 14 May. Son Max is said to have been taken to Sobibor on 6 July and was murdered there on 9 July.
90 thousand stones
During the laying of the stumbling blocks in Haarlem, artist Gunter Demnig told NH Nieuws that he laid the first copies in 1996 in his own hometown of Berlin. Only four years later, the project was officially embraced by others, who had the stones made by him.
The snowball effect that arose at the time has ensured that after this year 90,000 have been laid in 26 countries in Europe, he has calculated. “That’s just a little bit,” he says. “But I think it’s important as a symbol.”
On Wednesday 18 May, stumbling blocks will be laid at even more addresses in Amstelveen.