With the dates of birth and death and the places of deportation and internment, the inscription on a Stolperstein shows the most evident parts of Nationals Socialist persecution. But many other aspects of life remain unmentioned. What was the life of a person before the Nazis came into power like? Which dreams could or could not be realized? Which help was eventually given? Which existential decisions had to be made? What kind of traumata were caused on the path of life?
Those documents of the National Socialist persecution which still exist do not give any answers to these questions. In a distanced and disguising language, the majority of these documents solely illustrate the systematic and bureaucratic process of the murder of several million people in Europe. People who were not part of the public life – which most of the victims of the Nazis were not – in most cases did not leave any written traces behind from which a biography could be reconstructed. If one aims at writing a biography which does not alone base on National Socialist documents of persecution, this is in most casesS only possible with the help of relatives.
Because of these reasons, the biographies which can be found on this website are quite different from each other, as different as the lives of the people they deal with were. If you have any further or divergent information about people being introduced here, we would be very glad if you could contact the Coordination Office Stolpersteine Berlin, so that we can change the biographies or add further information.