On a chilly Wednesday morning in Helsinki’s Munkkiniemi district, passersby walking along the slowly awakening street catch sight of three concrete cubes with a brass plaque on the pavement.
Some take a quick look. Others stare longer. One man in a suit stops and reads the inscription carefully:
“Here lived Franz Olof Kollmann. Born in Helsinki in 1941. He was handed over to the Gestapo on November 6, 1942. Taken to Auschwitz in 1943. Murdered.”
According to the second plaque, Janka Kollmann, Franz’s mother, shared the same terrible fate.
These brass plates are Finland’s first Stolpersteine, or “stumbling stones,” which were placed in the pavement of Munkkiniemen Puistotie on Saturday, inscribed with the names of the victims of Nazi persecution.
The building behind the Stolpersteine was the home of the Jewish Kollmann family before it was handed over to the Nazis in 1942.
In Finland, a total of eight Jews were handed over to the Nazis during the Second World War. The other five are still missing their Stolpersteine.
The man in the suit takes a second look at the plaques.
The third Stolperstein reads: “Here lived Dr. Georg Kollmann. Born in Austria in 1912. Escaped to Finland. Turned over to the Gestapo on November 6, 1942. Taken to Auschwitz in 1943. Was released.”
A person is only forgotten when his or her name is forgotten,” says Gunter Demnig, the artist behind the idea, who also installed the Stolpersteine in Munkkiniemi.
There are more than 67,000 Stolpersteine in 22 countries around the world.
And there are more to be installed.
