Stumbling Stones Park de Griffioen 2

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

* Marc Herman Boasson, born 1887, murdered 20 August1943, Gräditz.
* Bella Boasson-Sanders, born 1891, murdered 7 September 1942, Auschwitz.

Background

Little was found about the Boassons’ childhoods or educations. Marc Herman Boasson and Bella Sanders married, but no mention was found as to any children.

Marc Boasson was a director (with his nephew) of M.H. Boasson & Sons, a Middleburg business that manufactured and supplied materials such as lace, fur, and cloth, for the making of traditional costumes worn in Zeeland. Marc also served on the Middleburg City Council in the 1930s. In 1936, he and Bella moved into a house he had built at this Park de Griffioen 2 address.

When the Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, Marc and Bella fled to friends in Aardenburg but returned to Middleburg in early June to find that the Boasson & Sons building was destroyed in the German bombing. He announced he would relocate it. By November, he, a Jew, had to give up his council seat. A year later his business was taken, and then his house.

On March 24, 1942, all Jews in Zeeland province were ordered to go to Amsterdam. Their last location in Amsterdam was with the Levie family, at Plantage Muidergracht 29, where on 2 September the Dutch police picked them up, took them to the Hollandse Schouwburg collection center, from which they were taken the next day to Camp Westerbork.

One day later, on 4 September 1942, the couple was put on an Auschwitz-bound train with over 700 other prisoners. Before reaching the destination, Marc and about 200 men and youth were taken off – selected for forced labor. Bella Boasson-Sanders remained on the train and was killed on arrival at Auschwitz on 7 September 1942. Marc Boasson labored in various camps. He was killed on 20 August 1943 in Gräditz, a camp south of Gross-Rosen, near Breslau.

"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."

Borne was the first town in the Netherlands in which Stolpersteine were placed -- on 29 Nov. 2007.