On the laying of the stumbling blocks in Haßfurt on 29 May and Bad Brückenau on 29 September 2023

By Alex Klubertanz

Maike & Stefan, also known as Pohyb's & Co., accompanied our first laying of stumbling blocks at Pentecost 2023 in Haßfurt with a scenic performance - and thus contributed significantly to making this event a truly moving, stirring experience for everyone involved - especially for the descendants of the Rosenthal family of victims who were present.

Maike & Stefan played the two surviving children of the family as they visited their hometown in the 1960s - a fictional but entirely imaginable setting. The two come to Haßfurt, visit the places where they spent their childhood and youth, and bring back their memories: of the parties in their parents' house, the celebrations in the synagogue and the deportation from Haßfurt train station, which led most of the family to the extermination camps.

Maike & Stefan did not just let their imagination run wild, but intensively studied the sources that provide information about the Rosenthals. This was also the case with their second assignment of this kind, the transfer for Gitta Oppenheimer on September 29, 2023 in Bad Brückenau, when they slipped into the roles of Arnold and Reni Zeller: Here, too, two survivors of the crime against humanity in the 1960s return to their homeland and remember.

Impressive depictions that left no one unmoved. What remains is an idea of how closely Jewish life and Jewish culture were anchored in communal society - and what we have lost...