Beny Maissner

What do the stones represent to you?

But all the children of my father's generation, my father, his sister, his other sister, and the younger brother also by and there are stones in their name. On the day that we saw these young teenagers, the next day, when it was our private ceremony, one of the girls came and spoke in front of my father's location, where the stones were put. And she said that the Stolpersteine are meaningful to her because until then she knew about the Holocaust, but she could not relate it to any specific person because you cannot comprehend 6 million. But when you stumble over a certain name, when she sees it and she described it, she could relate what this name that she saw suffered that night of Kristallnacht or what it means if the family has children, what the children must have felt. So it was very individual for her…

It means a lot to me. I don't think about it daily. When, when people go and look at these stones, they may not know any specific history of a particular person or the fate of that particular family, but the young children may ask the parents, what are these stones here for? Just to tell you the story. One other point that in my father's location, where we put the stones, there was a young man who came and talked to me and asked me about my grandfather. And I said, well, why are you asking all these questions? I'm a journalist. I want to tell a story. I said, why are so interested in it? He said because my grandparents never talked to me and never told me anything. And I didn't speak to them for years until at one point they started to tell me the story and I made it my life's project to carry the story ... that the younger generation was shocked by what he heard about his parents or grandparents. And I never even asked my friends in Germany where their parents were during the war. I never did…