A Stolperstein, or a stumbling block, a cobblestone-sized brass monument commemorating Jewish victims of the Holocaust, was installed in Rijeka on Tuesday, in front of a house that had been home to Eugenij Lipschitz and Gianetta Lipschitz, nee Zipszer, who had been killed in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz.
It is the first such monument in Croatia and was installed by German artist Gunter Demnig at the initiative of the victims' grandson Albert Heimler, who lives in Rome.
Heimler's parents managed to leave Rijeka during World War II, but his grandparents remained in the city until 1944 when they were deported to Trieste and on to Auschwitz.
The monument unveiling ceremony was attended, among others, by Albert Heimler, Mayor Vojko Obersnel, representatives of the Jewish community in Rijeka and the Federation of Antifascist Fighters, and the Chief Rabi of Croatia and Montenegro, Luciano Mose Prelevic.
After the ceremony, an exhibition entitled "From Emancipation to the Holocaust - Jews in Rijeka and Opatija 1867-1945", was opened in the Rijeka City Museum.
German artist Gunter Demnig launched the Stolpersteine project in 1996 and such memorials are installed throughout Europe.
