Information: Wikipedia

A Stolperstein literally "stumbling stone", metaphorically a "stumbling block" is a sett-size, 10 by 10 centimetres (3.9 in × 3.9 in) concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution.

The Stolpersteine project, initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, aims to commemorate individuals at exactly the last place of residency—or, sometimes, work—which was freely chosen by the person before he or she fell victim to Nazi terror, euthanasia, eugenics, was deported to a concentration or extermination camp, or escaped persecution by emigration or suicide. As of 29 March 2018, over 67,000 Stolpersteine have been laid in 22 countries, making the Stolpersteine project the world's largest decentralized memorial.

The majority of Stolpersteine commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Others have been placed for Sinti and Romani people (then also called "gypsies"), homosexuals, the physically or mentally disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, black people, members of the Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the anti-Nazi Resistance, the Christian opposition (both Protestants and Catholics), and Freemasons, along with International Brigade soldiers in the Spanish Civil War, military deserters, conscientious objectors, escape helpers, capitulators, "habitual criminals", looters, and others charged with treason, military disobedience, or undermining the Nazi military, as well as Allied soldiers.

Jan Verstraeten was a ship repairer and resistance fighter. He was deported to Buchenwald in August 1944 and died on the Death March from Buchenwald to Terezin.

Broeckhove was a socialist who worked as a teacher and syndicalist, and who was also a councilor in Wilrijk for a short time until the Nazi occupiers expelled him from the local government.  However, Broeckhove joined the resistance. Together with a small group of supporters, he started publishing and distributing the surreptitious magazine De Volksstem, and he later collaborated on another publication, België Vrij, through the resistance organization Het Independence Front. In January 1942 he was arrested together with several companions and taken to prison in Begijnenstraat. After a stopover in Breendonk, he was deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp, where he died in August 1942.