Memorial service held at UK’s only Stumbling Stone

An educational charity has held a unique memorial service in London to commemorate a victim of Auschwitz.

StandWithUs UK led the event on 14 February alongside the UK’s only Stumbling Stone (or Stolperstein), in Golden Square, Soho. As of December 2019, some 75,000 of these brass plates have been installed across Europe at the last place of residence or work for victims of the Holocaust.

This particular brass plate commemorates the life of Ada van Dantzig who died in Auschwitz on this exact date. Amongst those in attendance were local MP Nickie Aiken, Annabel Pattle and Louise Cohen from the Holocaust Educational Trust, (HET), Betti Blatman who is a second-generation Holocaust survivor, as well as staff and students from StandWithUs.

Devora Stoll, the charity’s director for strategic partnerships, thanked everyone for taking the time to come and pay their respects. She reflected on how, “this small 10 centimetre brass plate in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world was able to bring all of us together. It may seem insignificant to a passer-by, but to us it keeps Ada’s memory alive. We can never underestimate the impact our actions can make, no matter how small.”

Ada was a Dutch Jew who studied and worked in London. She became concerned for her family in the Netherlands as Hitler rose to power, and finally returned to Rotterdam in 1939. She and her family were arrested in France as they tried making their way to Switzerland, and later murdered in Auschwitz.

As the cleaning ceremony for the stone went underway, Nickie Aiken MP, alongside Betti Blatman polished the stone, whilst StandWithUs UK Emerson Leadership students helped; this symbolised the idea that the memory of the Holocaust must be kept alive with every generation.

Following a recitation of the poem ‘Shema’ by Primo Levi, read by HET Ambassador Caitlin Murphy, Rabbi Yisroel Lew of Bloomsbury Chabad recited Kaddish to conclude the ceremony.