Description - Berlin's Hollow Homes by Trevor Carroll
'Berlin's Hollow Homes'
The author, Trevor Carroll and his wife Mathilde were near the end of the first of three lengthy visits to Berlin. A necessity as their youngest son Paul lived there as a professional volleyball player.
While walking in the Charlottenburg neighbourhood they encountered a group of brass plaques embedded in the cobblestones at a buildings entrance. The plaques were each stamped with a name and dated 1942. Other similar plaques were also discovered, at random intervals on footpaths with similar inscriptions, all dated during World War Two. As only an ex-detective would, Trevor began to enquire as to what the plaques represented.
It soon transpired that they were Stolpersteine or stumble stones, each one a memorial to an occupant of the building that they lay outside. The vast majority were Jewish victims of the Nazi holocaust. Stolpersteine are the largest decentralised memorial in the world with more than 70,000 scattered across some 2,000 municipalities in 24 countries.
Each inscription is made in the local language beginning with 'HERE LIVED' followed by the name, date of birth and fate of the victim.
During the Nazi era from 1933 to 1945, Jews lost their livelihoods, possessions and finally their very existence to the Nazi regime, proving that the Nazi's were not only mass murderers, but common thieves as well.
We all are familiar with the figure of six million Jews murdered during the holocaust. Those huge holocaust numbers are not the focus of this book, but those Berliners remembered by Stolperstein in Berlin are.
The author has researched and resurrected stories of those people whose Stolperstein he has encountered, some of those tales are very brief as very little of their lives survives them. While other stories are in more detail describing the sacrifice, bravery and survival of some very extraordinary people.
After suffering years of Nazi persecution, Berlins Jews were subjected to deportation to the unknown. We now know of course their fate was either their immediate murder or death by labour beginning with their arrest and eventual transport to their deaths in closed cattle cars.
This is a thought provoking read, not just names & numbers, but an insight into the insanity of the Nazi regime. At times the shear brutality of these stories is confronting, but a reminder of our past that never should be forgotten.
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