Stumbling Stones Große Straße 55

These memorial stones (Stolpersteine or stumbling blocks) commemorate:
* Louis Löwenstein, born 1868, deported 1942 to Theresienstadt, 1942 Treblinka, murdered.
* Johanna Löwenstein née Jacobs, born 1859, humiliated / deprived of rights, dead 26 May 1938.
* Bertha Weinberg née Löwenstein, born 1897, fate unknown.
* Rosa Löwenstein, born 1900, deported 1942 to Theresienstadt, murdered 27 April 1944.
* Henriette Kamenetzky née Löwenstein, born 1895, ‘Polenaktion’ 1938, Bentschen / Zbaszyn, 1942 Treblinka, murdered.
* Mathilde Löwenstein, born 1879, fate unknown.

Louis and Johanna Löwenstein were the parents of Bertha, Rosa, Henriette and Mathilde. A boycott of his textile business started in 1936. Two years later, his wife Johanna died and he was forced to sell his house to the city (but in 1939 he asked the Mayor for the money from the sale). During Kristallnacht 1938, the mob threw stones at the windows, drove the family into the street and smashed the property. Homeless, he went to Hameln, where daughter Henriette Kamenetzky née Löwenstein took him in. He planned to emigrate to Palestine. In 1942, he and daughter Rosa were taken to Cologne and deported to Theresienstadt. She was mudered there; he in Treblinka. The fate of his other daughters Mathilde Löwenstein and Bertha Weinberg after their departure from Ibbenbüren is not known.

Henriette Löwenstein married Salomon Kamenetzky, a Polish citizen living in Germany. Their son Hermann was born in 1920 and their daughter Eva in 1928. Of the four, only Hermann survived, by fleeing to Palestine. The other 3 were subjected to the 1938 Nazi "Polenaktion" which forced Polish Jews living in Germany to leave. Stolpersteine for this Kamenetzky family are at Königstraße 2 in Hameln.

The small brass plaques, in the pavement in front of houses of which the (mostly Jewish) residents were persecuted or murdered by the Nazis, mention the name, date of birth and place (mostly a concentration camp) and date of death.

In many other cities and villages, mainly in Germany but also in other European countries, the memorials also can be found. There are already many thousands of these plaques and their number is still counting. Almost all Stolpersteine are laid by the German artist himself, Gunter Demnig.

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Source

• Text: Fedor de Vries & Anne Palmer
• Photos: Jens-Erik Janke
• Stolpersteine in Ibbenbüren, online flyer, p2
• Stadt Museum Ibbenbüren, Stadtgeschichte