Stumbling Stone An der Alster 28

Second World War (1939-1945)

Germany Hamburg Hamburg-St. Georg

This small, brass memorial plaque (Stolperstein or stumbling stone) commemorates:

* Moses (Moritz) Stern, born 1880, deported 1941, Minsk, ???.

Moses Stern, a merchant, and Hanny Haysen were married. Records show his given name also as Moritz. His neighbor survived the war and reported that he was a gentleman who calmed the children in the air raid cellar with word games. His neighbors lost track of him during the war.

On 8 November 1941, he was deported to Minsk along with about 1,000 other Jewish Hamburg residents. Of them, 952 were murdered, including Moses Stern. One of the few survivors remembered that day. Deportees were given one day’s warning. Keys to one’s residence had to be turned over to the police before meeting at the assembly point with one 50kg suitcase allowed per person. Jews had to sign a statement: ’I, the signing Jew, confirm hereby, that I am an enemy of the German government and that, therefore, I lose the right to all property I leave behind, furniture, items of value, accounts and cash. My German citizenship is hereby annulled and as of November 8, I am stateless.’

Moses Stern’s parents died before the war. Of his 3 siblings alive at the beginning of the war, one died in London in 1940, another died in Jerusalem in 1953, and the third, Aurelia Weyl was murdered in Theresienstadt. Her stolperstein is at Bahnhofstrasse 16 in Bocholt, Germany.

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