In memoriam

In Part II of Frau H.'s Altstadt tour, we learned that even if Freiburg doesn't have a Mendelssohnstr., there are some quiet memorials to the Jewish citizens killed in WWII.

Freiburg's old Synagogue, built in 1870, was burned and blasted down in a pogrom on November 10, 1938. Near its former site--now a plaza occupied by University buildings--stands a sign pointing toward Gurs, the concentraion camp in the French Pyrenees where approximately 350 of Freiburg's Jews, along with other Jews from Baden, Pfalz, and Saarland, were deported on October 22, 1940.

Distributed in various locations in Freiburg are other memorials: as of March, 2008, approximately 300 "Stolpersteine" (tripping stones) had been set into city sidewalks to remember Jewish residents who were deported and killed. This is part of a larger German project to remember the expulsion and execution of Jews, Gypsies, political opponents, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and victims of euthanasia during the Nazi regime (1933-1945). The stones in the photograph here, located at the intersection of Augustinergasse and Salzstrasse in the Altstadt, read: "Here lived Berthold Weil/Else Weil (nee Stern), born 1899/1909, deported 1940 Gurs, murdered 1942 Auschwitz."