Our first stop was Gedenkort Schlachthoframpe.
The last large deportation of Jews from Weisbaden (370 people) was September 1, 1942, from this location behind the Train Station.
Instead of going to the actual train station, they went to the schlachthof, which is a slaughterhouse for animals, often located next to train stations. Then they were crammed into cattle cars, and sent to the extermination camps. At the memorial here, chestnut trees line the way to a mural, painted by graffiti spray-paint artist Yorkar7, depicting a photo-realistic look at the arrival and registration of deportees.
The trees are in sandstone holders inscribed with words from letters of the deportees.
Okay, I have to sidetrack for a second here. This is the slaughterhouse.
As you can see, it is completely covered with graffiti. But come to find out, this area of the city is a designated and legal place for graffiti. You have to register, sometimes with a workshop, and you have to follow certain rules (like nothing racist, sexist, violent, etc, respect other artists/images, and things like that). Anyway, I was blown away by some of the art there. It is really cool to see.
Okay, now back to the field trip. Our next stop was the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma, which are gypsy groups. Obviously, the Jewish people were not the only victims of the Nazis, and this memorial shows a group of men, women, and children being crushed under a heavy load.
Next was the Aktives Museum, which currently has a small display of anti-Semitic propaganda - stamps, matchbooks, leaflets, etc., all telling about how the greatest evil is the Jews, and it's there fault for the war, blah, blah, blah. Also advertisements for Jewish-free hotels and the like. Sad stuff. (by the way, the Aktives Museum is also involved with the stumbling stones here in Wiesbaden, which I'll talk about later)
We also stopped at the sight of the former synagogue, which was burned to the ground in 1938.
It was one of the most beautiful buildings in Wiesbaden, and it's a shame it's not still there.
In its place is this memorial wall, which has the names of 1,507 Wiesbaden victims.
Inside the Rathaus (town hall), there is a small memorial room of Jewish life. They have a really cool video that shows a virtual reconstruction of the old synagogue. This display (below) has a mirror opposite it, and you have to look in the mirror to read what it says.
Part of it says (rough translation), "As a Jew, they were step-by-step gradually forced out of society. Their shops were boycotted, they were persecuted, dispossessed, and later forced to emigrate. Their synagogues were burned, and businesses were looted and destroyed. Those who couldn't emigrate tried to flee to save their lives. Many did not succeed. Parents tried desperately to save their children by sending them abroad. Soon, those who could not save themselves had to wear the yellow star, were deported to concentration camps, forced into slave labor, tortured and murdered...and then...they were gone.
The whole time we were walking around the Wiesbaden, we were also on the lookout for the stumbling stones, and took pictures of the ones we found.
Previously, I was under the impression that this project was started by the government, but it wasn't - the stumbling stones are a project of the artist Gunter Demnig from Cologne, to commemorate the victims of the Nazi-regime. Demnig's motto is,
"A human being is only forgotten when his name is forgotten."
The brass-plated paving stones are put into the public sidewalk in front of the house where the person had last freely chosen residence. The inscription says, "Here lived...", followed by the dates of birth, deportation, and death. In this way, Demnig brings the victims of the Nazi terror back into the neighborhoods where they were taken from.
Everyone passing by who wants to read the inscription, by lowering his head, makes a little bow to the victim. I love that!
This European art project is now the biggest non-central memorial worldwide. At present, nearly 35,000 stumbling stones lie in over 600 locations in Europe (Germany, Austria, France, Poland, etc.) Below is a video about this project. The video is a little old, but it tells about their website and what they do.
I don't know how it is in other cities, but here in Wiesbaden, in 2004, the local city parliament decided to support the project, and helps place the stones (obviously the artist Demnig cannot place ALL the stones himself). And a local museum, the Aktives Museum Spiegelgasse for German-Jewish history, is responsible for the research of each family and individual, and the organizational aspects of placing the stones. There are currently 509 stones in Wiesbaden. Individuals and groups sponsor each stone, which costs 120 Euro. In 2014 five stumbling stones were laid in memory of the Weiser family. The Wiesbaden Middle School JLS (Junior Leadership Seminar) purchased one stone in memory of Adolf Wieser, the teenaged son of Hermann and Ester.
