Stolpersteine

The world reels again today from news of great cruelty perpetrated by human beings on other human beings: mass killing of children in their school in Peshawar, Pakistan. We hear of such an event and must accept that it is true, even if we can't imagine the heartless brutality and can only dimly picture the devastation of families and the wider community.

Perhaps there is some larger context at work because today was the day my husband, Markus, and I became caretakers of two Stolpersteine in Heilbronn. The Stolpersteine are in memory of Karl and Rita Kahn, who lived at Wollhausstraße 40.

A Stolperstein is a brass plaque, about 10 x 10 cm, embedded in the sidewalk at the address of a victim of Nazi extermination. Name, date of birth, deportation, date and place of death are engraved into the metal surface. The verb stolpern means to trip, and pedestrians are meant to "trip" over the plaques, like uneven cobblestones, and take note.

The terse, non-euphemistic wording on the plaques can be a shock. "Murdered in Auschwitz" is the text on these two plaques. The sidewalk in front of my in-law's building in Stuttgart has a Stolperstein for a young man, Helle Hirsch, guillotined by the Nazis in 1937 for his role in the resistance. The plaque says "Decapitated."

Artist Gunter Demning began the Stolperstein project in the 1990's, and it has grown since then. Spend some time on the website to get an idea. Heilbronn joined the project in 2009. Yesterday, the Heilbronner Stimme printed a notice that the plaques in Heilbronn need caretakers. Markus responded, and we promptly received our assignment.

This morning we went to find the Stolpersteine and see what immediate care they needed. 

Karl Kahn and Rita Kahn, Stolpersteine at Wollhausstraße 40

We spent ten minutes rubbing metal polish across the surface with a soft rag. The "stones" cleaned up to be too shiny to photograph well with a smartphone. In reality, they look more textured with tarnish, and it's quite easy to read the text. We'll work on another photo.

At stolpersteine-heilbronn.de, you can read (in German) about the plaques in Heilbronn. A pdf gives biographical information about the Kahns. Here is a translation of that text. We hope to learn what became of the Kahn's son, Hans.

Wollhausstr. 40
Compiled by Dr. Gerhard Schneider (Freundeskreis Synagoge Heilbronn e.V.)
English translation by Mary Craig (Stolpersteinpatin, Flein).

Karl Kahn was born on December 26, 1890 in Hollerbach.* After completing state examinations to become certified as a teacher and a teacher of religion, Kahn worked in various locations in Württemberg before he came to Heilbronn in 1924. On March 28, 1929 he married Rita Meyer, born on April 23, 1906 in Bibra, Thuringia.

After 1933, as attendance of public school for Jewish children became increasingly difficult and ultimately forbidden, a private Jewish school was set up in Heilbronn—in the rooms of the Adlerkeller brewery restaurant in Klarastraße. Karl Kahn served as director of the school and its only teacher at times. His own son, Hans, born on February 11, 1930 also attended the school, which had the character of a Mittelschule (a standard, non-college prep school).

In 1939 Karl Kahn assumed the role of cantor at the synagogue after Cantor Isy Krämer and his wife emigrated. Kahn remained active within the steadily decreasing Jewish community, particularly in helping to arrange emigrations. “To save the small Jewish community, he gave his own life and the life of his wife” (wrote Hermine Rosenthal in a letter to Hans Franke).

Karl Kahn and his wife seem to have stayed in Germany to provide as much support as possible to members of their faith community. In 1939 they sent their then 9-year-old son to England on a Kindertransport, an effort to spare Jewish children from Germany the anticipated deportations. In the fall of 1941, the Kahns were forced to move to Stuttgart. From there they were deported by Sammeltransport (collective transport) to Theresienstadt on September 22, 1942. They were both murdered on October 6, 1944 in Auschwitz.

*In Rheinland-Pfalz, 175 km northeast of Heilbronn.