Zwalm - Stolpersteine
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.
List of Stolpersteine in the town of Zwalm
Beekmeersstraat 5: MICHEL VAN DE VELDE
Beekmeersstraat 5
hier geboren
MICHEL
VAN DE VELDE
geb. 1912
verzetsstrijder
‘onafhankelijkheidsfront’
gearresteerd 22.3.1943
gedeporteerd 1944
Neuengamme
bezweken 15.5.1945
Sandbostel
Beekmeersstraat 5
here was born
MICHEL
VAN DE VELDE
born 1912
resistance fighter
‘liberation front’
arrested 22.3.1943
deported 1944
Neuengamme
perished 15.5.1945
Sandbostel
Political Prisoner Michel Vande Velde, deported to the Neuengamme concentration camp in 1944. He died of exhaustion at Sandbostel, near Bremen, on May 15, 1944,