Mala Zimetbaum to Receive a Stolperstein in Antwerp
News02.05.2024
On 8 May 2024, a Stolperstein will be installed to commemorate Mala Zimetbaum in front of her former home in Antwerp. The Stolperstein project commemorates the victims of Nazi persecution. Since its beginning in Germany in 1992, more than 100,000 Stolpersteine have been installed right across Europe.
Mala Zimetbaum was born on 20 January 1918 in Breszko, Poland. She moved with her family to Antwerp in 1928, and lived at their family home at 7 Marinisstraat from the early 1930s onward. On 12 June 1942, she was arrested during the first mass detainments of Jewish people in Antwerp by the German occupying forces and deported to the Dossin barracks in Mechelen, Belgium, and then to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on 15 September 1942 as part of “Transport X”, together with 1,048 Jewish women, men, and children. Mala Zimetbaum was murdered in the camp on 15 September 1944, along with her parents and three young nephews. Between August 1942 and July 1944, a total of 24,906 Jewish people were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau from the transit camp at the Dossin barracks, along with 351 Sinti and Roma. Only 1,195 survived to see the end of the war.
The ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. on 8 May 2024 at 7 Marinisstraat in Antwerp. There will be musical performances and speeches, including one by the historian Professor Herman Van Goethem, who wrote the foreword for the Dutch edition of Barbara Beuys’s biography The Heroine of Auschwitz, which appeared just this month. Beuys will also be in attendance to give a reading from the book.
Mala Zimetbaum was born on 20 January 1918 in Breszko, Poland. She moved with her family to Antwerp in 1928, and lived at their family home at 7 Marinisstraat from the early 1930s onward. On 12 June 1942, she was arrested during the first mass detainments of Jewish people in Antwerp by the German occupying forces and deported to the Dossin barracks in Mechelen, Belgium, and then to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on 15 September 1942 as part of “Transport X”, together with 1,048 Jewish women, men, and children. Mala Zimetbaum was murdered in the camp on 15 September 1944, along with her parents and three young nephews. Between August 1942 and July 1944, a total of 24,906 Jewish people were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau from the transit camp at the Dossin barracks, along with 351 Sinti and Roma. Only 1,195 survived to see the end of the war.
The ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. on 8 May 2024 at 7 Marinisstraat in Antwerp. There will be musical performances and speeches, including one by the historian Professor Herman Van Goethem, who wrote the foreword for the Dutch edition of Barbara Beuys’s biography The Heroine of Auschwitz, which appeared just this month. Beuys will also be in attendance to give a reading from the book.