Stolpersteine laid to commemorate family of Holocaust survivor and classmate of Anne Frank

A large crowd gathered in Amsterdam to witness the laying of Stolpersteine (memorial stumbling blocks)  in memory of the family of Holocaust survivor and classmate of Anne Frank, 97-year old Nanette Blitz König.

The event hosted by Anne Frank House in late April, featured speeches from family members who had travelled from across the world to be present, although Nanette who lives in São Paulo, Brazil, was unable to attend.

Martin Joseph König (Nanette’s son), alongside her daughter Judith Marion Arato and grandson Thomas Arato, said: “Today, we return my mother and her family to the street where their lives were once lived openly and without fear.

“These stones ensure that their names are not lost to history, but remain part of the city’s living memory. My mother survived to tell her story; her parents and brother did not. We lay these Stolpersteine not only in remembrance of them, but as a quiet, enduring call to conscience for future generations.”

The stones (ten-centimetre concrete cubes bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution) were installed in front of Van Baerlestraat 58, the last place the König family freely lived before they fell victim to Nazi terror.

On 29 September 1943, they were arrested by the Nazis and later deported to concentration camps via the transit camp, Westerbork. Nanette was then taken to Bergen-Belsen from where she was liberated by the British Army on 15 April 1945, the only member of her family to survive.

Others attending included Melissa Müller, biographer of Anne Frank; Holocaust educator and Generation2Generation speaker John Wood, whose father Lt-Col Leonard Berney was among those who liberated Nanette from Bergen-Belsen; Ronald Leopold, executive director of Anne Frank House, Amsterdam; representatives of Anne Frank House UK and Anne Frank House Brazil; representatives of the Stolpersteine organisation in Amsterdam; Anne Geerse from the ABN AMRO Art and Heritage Foundation; and Liesbeth Heenk, publisher of Nanette’s memoir, ‘Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen survivor. Classmate of Anne Frank (2018)’ as well as other members of Nanette’s family.

The Stolpersteine project was launched by German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992; as of June 2023, 100,000 Stolpersteine have been laid, with the majority commemorating Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Others have been placed for Sinti and Romani people, Poles, homosexuals, the physically or mentally disabled and Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as many other victims of the Nazis.