“For many of these people, they don’t have a grave site. No one said Kaddish for them, because they were just exterminated… when the Stolpersteine were laid for our family, our family was there, and we said the Kaddish for them. That’s, in essence, the memorial for them.” -Ron Weitzenkorn
When history feels distant, it’s stories like Ron Weitzenkorn’s that bring it home. In this episode of Hear My Story, Ron shares how his family narrowly escaped Nazi Germany after Kristallnacht—and how he’s honoring the relatives who didn’t survive through Stolpersteine, the world’s largest decentralized Holocaust memorial. Each small brass “stumbling stone,” placed outside a victim’s last known home, marks a life once lived and lost, both those persecuted and those murdered. Ron shares how he’s researching his family’s stories, and making trips to see these markers laid, to keep the lessons of the Holocaust alive for future generations.
This episode is part of the Cynthia & Harold Guttman Family Center for Storytelling. Subscribe here https://www.youtube.com/@holocaustandhumanity
Our gratitude to Margaret & Michael Valentine for their ongoing support of this series.
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Episode Resources
Learn more about the artist, Gunter Demnig, and his work here
https://www.stolpersteine.eu/en
Learn more about Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass”
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht
