Gershon Willinger

What do the stones represent to you?

So what Jane and I did, we made a special trip to Germany for the first time, because I never had a gravestone of my parents. And I remember we saw the Bürgermeister, the mayor of the town came, he brought a little thing and we polished the stone, and I didn't cry, it was not even emotional because I, I think I cried enough all my life. So anyway, that gives you somewhere to belong and I cleaned it up very nicely. We stayed a week. I went to the place where my father worked which doesn't exist anymore. It's the only gravestone I have about my parents. I felt so at home, in Germany with the Stolpersteine, maybe it's my culture, where I come from. I felt this is something that I can touch, it is tangible something of my parents. And it was very important to me and it was a gravestone to me. It gives me a feeling that I belong and that people still care.  And my parents were Germans, they were transplants to Holland out of necessity, but they still were entrenched in the German culture, German society when they lived there…