by Alessandra Ressa
As the annual international Holocaust commemorations on January 27th draw near, the Jewish Community of Trieste, in collaboration with the local Municipality, is set to conduct a moving ceremony featuring the installation of 13 new stumbling stones. This initiative, part of the larger stolpersteine (stumbling stones) project initiated by German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, seeks to pay tribute to the victims of the Shoah.
Demning himself will personally oversee the placement of these memorial stones across various locations in Trieste. The ceremony kicks off on Tuesday, January 16th, at 9 a.m. in Piazza Ponterosso 6, where the first stone will be laid in memory of Egon Brunner, a Trieste native born in 1888 and executed at the infamous Risiera di San Sabba in 1944.
The second stone will find its place in Piazza Sant’Antonio Nuovo 2, honoring renowned climber and rower Silvio Spagnul, who met his fate in Dachau for assisting fellow athletes of Jewish origin. Trieste’s conservatory, Giuseppe Tartini, will witness the dedication of two stones to Giulio Laganella and Vittorio Menassè.
Among the notable names to be engraved on the stones during Tuesday’s ceremony is Triestino writer Pia Rimini, whose appeals for salvation to Bishop Santin went unanswered. From the Risiera, where she was detained before deportation, Rimini wrote to the bishop, “I’m off to Auschwitz. Please take care of my parents. Tell them I will be back.”
The ceremony will conclude at 4:15 p.m. with the placement of three stumbling stones at Piazza tra i Rivi 1. The third stone commemorates Angel Kaucic, a Slovenian partisan who succumbed in an extermination camp just days before liberation.
Since 2018, Trieste has witnessed the installation of 128 stumbling stones, each bearing the weight of a poignant story. Further details about the ceremony can be found on the Jewish Community of Trieste’s website at https://www.triestebraica.it/it. For a comprehensive map of the stumbling stones in Trieste and the narratives behind each engraved name, visit www.museoebraicotrieste.it/mappa-pietre-dinciampo-triestine.
