Stumbling Stones Judengasse 27

These Stolpersteine / Stumbling Stones commemorate:

* Martin Weis, born 1906, deported 1942, murdered in Majdanek.
* Hillel Weis, born 1939, deported 1942, Piaski, murdered.
* Emilie Weis née Keller, born 1905, deported 1942, Piaski, murdered.
* Frieda Strauss, born 1876, deported 1942, dead 1943 in Theresienstadt.
* Johanna ‘Hannchen’ Strauss, born 1887, deported 1942, Piaski, murdered.

Lina Weis was Martin Weis’s mother and her sisters were Frieda Strauss and Johanna Strauss. Martin married Emilie Keller and they had a son, Hillel Weis, who was the last Jewish child born in Worms. All were deported during 1942.

Martin Weiss (different spelling but likely the same person), is listed in the Majdanek list of murdered inmates with date of death as 30 July 1942. According to Yad Vashem, Emilie and their son Hillel were both deported from Piaski to Belzec, a death camp.

Piaski was 23 km from Lublin. The Germans established a ghetto there in 1940. Then in 1942 it became a transit point for deportations to death camps. Over 1000 Jews were deported from Rhineland (including Worms) on 20/21 March 1942. To make room for them, officials had deported earlier ghetto residents to Belzec. Newcomers to the ghetto were held there only until they could be deported on to concentration camps or death camps, including Belzec and Sobibor.

It’s possible that sisters Lina Weiss and Frieda Strauss were both deported by train in November 1942 on Transport XVII/1 from Darmstadt to Theresienstadt. Both were dead the next year.

Theresienstadt was established at the end of November 1941 as a Jewish settlement for propaganda purposes to be a home for German, Austrian and Czech Jews -- the elderly, WW 1 veterans and celebrities who might be inquired about. In reality, it was also a transit camp that deported tens of thousands of people to other sites, including extermination camps.

"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 with the victim’s name, date 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: Fedor de Vries & Anne Palmer
• Photos: Mathieu Scheffers
• Stolpersteine in Worms
• Holocaust Research Project: Piaski
• Yad Vashem: Theresienstadt
• Yad Vashem Transport XVII/1
• Stolpersteine.eu