More “Stolpersteine” have been placed into pavements in Banská Bystrica, Bratislava

THE INTERNATIONAL “Stolperstein” (Stumbling Block) project featuring the placing of commemorative stones into pavements before erstwhile homes of victims of Nazi persecution came to Banská Bystrica for the fourth time on August 8.

Stolpersteine put in plac ein Bratislava Stolpersteine put in plac ein Bratislava (Source: TASR)

Nine Stolpersteine have already been placed in Banská Bystrica. The event at the weekend will commemorate, among others, film director Peter Solan, a native of Banská Bystrica, who as a boy had to flee from Nazi persecution.

SkryťTurn off ads
Article continues after video advertisement
SkryťTurn off ads
Article continues after video advertisement

The author of the project German artist Günter Demnig placed three of these stumbling blocks into the pavement on Horná Ulica 23 (Upper Street) on Saturday to pay tribute to members of the family of Gotthilfe, whose tragic fate will be narrated by a historian and witnesses.

The Banska Bystrica amphitheatre showed in the evening Solan’s film entitled The Boxer and Death (1962), which deals with the theme of the Holocaust.

SkryťTurn off ads

In Bratislava, three more Stolpersteine were placed in the pavement of the Old Town on August 9 – on Štúrova Street – to commemorate the Rotter family; on Tolstého – to remind of the Oesterreich family; and on Klariská, to mark the fate of Bratislava Jewish activist Gizela “Gisi” Fleischmann. City representatives participated in the festive ceremony, saying that these stones should express the respect and wish for the Slovak capital to become, again, a place where people of different cultures and creeds can live together side by side peacefully, the TASR newswire wrote.

On that weekend, more stumbling blocks were placed in the towns of Brezno, Tornaľa, and Dubová pri Modre, to add to those installed in previous years in Lučenec, Ratková, Častá, Halič, Prešov, and Komárno. 

SkryťTurn off ads

More than 50,000 Stolpersteine have already been placed throughout Europe since the beginning in 2000. Eleven Slovak towns and villages feature more than 50 commemorative stones.

 

Top stories

Janka, a blogger, during the inauguration of the first flight to Athens with Aegean Airlines at the airport in Bratislava on September 14, 2023.

A Czech rail operator connects Prague and Ukraine, Dominika Cibulková endorses Pellegrini, and Bratislava events.


Píšem or pišám?

"Do ľava," (to the left) I yelled, "Nie, do prava" (no, to the right), I gasped. "Dolšie," I screamed. "Nie, nie, horšie..." My Slovak girlfriend collapsed in laughter. Was it something I said?


Matthew J. Reynolds
Czech biochemist Jan Konvalinka.

Jan Konvalinka was expecting a pandemic before Covid-19 came along.


SkryťClose ad