Stumbling Stones Neanderstraße 22

These small, brass, memorial plaques (Stolpersteine or stumbling stones) commemorate:

* Joseph Polack, born 1867, deported 1942, Theresienstadt, 1942 Treblinka, murdered.
* Emilie Polack née Koopmann, born 1866, deported 1942, Theresienstadt, murdered 4 September 1942.

Background

Joseph Polack and Emilie Koopmann married in 1900. They had 2 children – Meta (b. 1901) and Erwin (b. 1905). Occupationally, Joseph followed his father into making and selling brushes, and Emilie worked in sales, adding cosmetics and toiletries to the store. Joseph had another job as a conductor for the Hamburger Hochbahn elevated railway. Eventually Erwin finished school and became a brushmaker. He and Anna Parnes married. They fled to Palestine in 1934. Joseph and Emilie gave up their business in December 1938. He continued to receive a small pension from his work on the railway, and they moved into a residential house. In 1939, daughter Meta fled with her new husband to the USA.

Joseph and Emilie Polack were deported in July 1942 to Theresienstadt. They lived in the same room, Q418. She died there on 4 September 1942. Two weeks later, Joseph was among the 2008 prisoners from Theresienstadt who were deported on 26 September 1942 to the Treblinka extermination camp, where all 2008 were murdered.

"Stolpersteine" is an art project for Europe by Gunter Demnig to commemorate victims of National Socialism (Nazism). Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) are small, 10x10cm brass plaques placed in the pavement in front of the last voluntary residence of (mostly Jewish) victims who were murdered by the Nazis. Each plaque is engraved victim’s with the name, year of birth, and place (mostly a concentration camp) and date of death. By doing this, Gunter Demnig gives an individual memorial to each victim. One stone, one name, one person. He cites the Talmud: "A human being is forgotten only when his or her name is forgotten."

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Source

• Text: Anne Palmer
• Photos: Pauli-Pirat (1), Pauli-Pirat (2)
• Stolpersteine Hamburg: Joseph Polack
• holocaust.cz
• Stolpersteine.eu