Moerdijk - 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 Moerdijk

Steenweg 41: THERESE BOCK


Steenweg 41

hier woonde

ZUSTER CHARITAS

‚THERESE BOCK’

geb. 1909

gearresteerd 2-8-1942

Breda

vermoord 30-9-1942

Auschwitz

Steenweg 41

here lived

ZUSTER CHARITAS

‘THERESE BOCK’

born 1909

arrested 2-8-1942

Breda

murdered 30-9-1942

Auschwitz

Thérèse Bock was born on June 13, 1909 in Vienna, the second daughter of Hermina Grűnbaum and Samuel Bock. Her older sister is Edith Bock, her younger sister is Helene Bock.

On February 17, 1927, Thérèse herself enters the monastery in Moerdijk, where she receives the monastic name Charitas. In 1929 she gets her certificate as a teacher and is appointed to the primary school in Hazerswoude-Rijndijk. For this she moves to the St. Liduina convent of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in the same place. At that time she had a busy correspondence with her sister Edith, who is also a teacher in Rotterdam, and with her stepfather's brother, who is a chaplain in Steenwijk.  

In 1940 Thérèse Bock loses her job as a teacher as a result of anti-Jewish measures and she is forced to return to Moerdijk.  On 2 August 1942 she was arrested in Moerdijk and taken to camp Amersfoort via Breda. There follows a reunion with her mothers and sisters, who are taken away from Rotterdam on the same day. On the same day, Catholic Jews were deported all over the Netherlands, as a reprisal for the letter of protest against the persecution of the Jews that the Dutch bishops had sent to Seys-Inquart, and had had compulsory reading in Dutch Catholic churches at the end of July 1942. Among them is also the well-known philosopher Edith Stein.

Thérèse Bock and her sisters are taken to Westerbork on August 4 and from there on August 7 they are deported to Auschwitz.