LET’S REMEMBER

While visiting Berlin recently with my wife, I found myself once again drawn into the quiet, persistent presence of history that lingers in the city’s streets. We were there to visit her brother and his family, a familiar trip we’ve made many times before. Yet, each time we walk through the neighborhoods, history seems to be whispering from beneath our feet.

Embedded in the sidewalks are small, brass plaques—Stolpersteine, or “stumbling stones”—bearing the names and fates of Holocaust victims. They’re easy to miss if you’re not looking for them, but once noticed, impossible to forget. Each plaque tells a story: the name of a person who once lived there, their birthdate, deportation, and, if known, the date of their death. A silent memorial, initiated by artist Günter Demnig in 1992, they number over 5,000 in Berlin alone.

As we paused by one such stone, my eyes drifted upward to a large sign on the wall above a doctor’s office. It marked the former home of Walter Serner, a writer who contributed to the expressionist journal Aktion. The sign read that Serner, a Jew, was deported to Riga and murdered…

…Riga. The name struck a deep, personal chord. I was born and raised in that city. There, on November 30 and December 8, 1941, no less than 25,000 Jews were murdered in the Rumbula forest. The massacre was executed by Nazis, aided by Latvian collaborators. Among those murdered were around 1,000 German Jews—perhaps including some of the very individuals memorialized on Berlin’s Stolpersteine. Today, in a post-war Germany where antisemitism is punishable by law, the contrast to that dark chapter is stark. Yet the past lives on in quiet reminders scattered throughout the cities.

Just days ago, on April 23–24, Israel held its Holocaust Remembrance Day—Yom HaShoah. Three weeks later, on May 14, the nation marked the anniversary of its independence declared in 1948. The memory of the Holocaust and the founding of Israel are threads in the same historical fabric. They are not separate stories but one deeply interconnected journey.

Standing in Berlin, beside a Stolperstein and beneath that plaque for Walter Serner, I asked myself: how many people walk by without noticing? How many pause long enough to remember? Then I saw them—two red roses laid gently by a plaque. No words. Just remembrance. Some things speak for themselves.

Let’s Remember, Care and Share!