Honoring A Family’s Memories with Stumbling Stones
Every year, Jewish communities around the world commemorate Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, on the 27th day of the Jewish month of Nissan. This year, Yom HaShoah will take place beginning the evening of April 23. In memory of the six million Jews who were slaughtered in the Holocaust, we are honored to share this story of memory and resilience with you.
Earlier this year, I had the amazing opportunity to watch Stolpersteine, or stumbling stones, be placed on the streets of Berlin in honor of Malie, Chaim, Ida, and Peppi Landsmann. The Landsmann family lived in Berlin from 1921 until their deportation in 1939 to a ghetto in Chrzanow, Poland. In 1942, the ghetto was liquidated, and the family was murdered at Auschwitz.
Ceremony of laying Stolpersteine in memory of the Landsmann family in Berlin
©Pablo Castagnola / Anzenberger
I first learned of the Landsmanns several years ago in my capacity as a research assistant at the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture. I had been asked to write an article for the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina’s annual magazine, on the topic of letters from Europe sent to family members in South Carolina before and during World War II.
My article focused on letters sent from Malka “Malie” Landsmann, in Berlin, to Minnie Tewel Baum, in Camden, South Carolina. In addition to personal messages, there are also letters between Minnie and various government agencies, societies, and aid organizations, all written with the intent of helping the Landsmanns escape Europe. The tragedy of the failure of those letters and the eventual death of the Landsmann family stuck with me long after I completed the article.
As I searched for a way to memorialize this family that I had grown connected to, I remembered learning about Stolpersteine as part of my Jewish Studies degree at the College of Charleston. Stolpersteine are small brass cubes embedded in the streets of countries like Germany and Poland that tell the story of individuals who were persecuted and murdered in the Holocaust. As of last summer, over 100,000 stones have been laid in 30 countries. I realized that this would be a meaningful way to memorialize the Landsmanns and return them to the city they loved.
To qualify for Stolpersteine in memory of the Landsmanns, I compiled the required documentation to prove that the family lived in Berlin before the beginning of World War II. Then I carefully documented their lives during the war, up until the letters stopped. I scoured archives, eventually finding survivor testimony from Yad Vashem that stated Malie and Chaim were murdered at Auschwitz. No known records state the fate of Ida and Peppi, though it can be assumed they were also murdered.
Then I got to work fundraising with a good old fashioned bake sale. And what better baked good to sell for this project than hamantaschen, the traditional cookie eaten on Purim? For three years now, I have organized an annual bake sale during Purim, making dozens of hamantaschen alongside my friends at Hillel and raising nearly a thousand dollars.
Finally, I was ready to apply for the Landsmanns’ Stolpersteine. I heard back right away that there was a three-year waitlist, but because I’m a college student, they would move up the timeline. Eight months later, I was given an unveiling date of early March 2025.
I made the trip to Berlin with Dr. Chad Gibbs, the professor who had introduced me to the Stolperstein, and Minnie Tewel Baum’s great-nephew. We went on walking tours of Berlin and visited other Holocaust memorials before attending the stumbling stone unveiling. It was a quiet Sunday morning, and there were about 10 people present, many of them strangers, who showed up to welcome the Landsmanns back to Berlin. It was a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience, and a source of bittersweet emotions, knowing that no matter how much the Nazis might have tried, they did not succeed in erasing the memories of Malie, Chaim, Ida, or Peppi.
Ceremony of laying Stolpersteine in memory of the Landsmann family in Berlin
On the picture: German artist Gunter Demnig intalling Stolpersteine (Stumbling-Stones) in memory of the Landsmann family in Berlin
©Pablo Castagnola / Anzenberger
It has been such an honor to memorialize the Landsmanns and return their memories to a city where they once envisioned their future.
Leah Davenport is graduating in May from the College of Charleston with a degree in Jewish Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies. In the fall, she will pursue a Master of Social Work degree at Boston College.