Mondex is Committed to Community Support and Education
Stolpersteine (stumbling stones)
Mondex is dedicated to achieving justice for families whose artworks or other property were looted during the Holocaust. We also believe that it is vital to remember those who were persecuted, imprisoned or who lost their lives during this dark period, which is why we have supported our clients’ requests for memorial stones known as Stolpersteine.
In the late 20th century, German artist Gunther Demnig began to place small concrete memorial cubes outside the former homes of those persecuted or murdered by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. Victims came from all backgrounds: Jews, resistance fighters, dissidents, Roma, homosexuals, psychiatric patients and others. The cubes or stones were named Stolpersteine (stumbling stones or stumbling blocks).
Where Mondex has restituted artworks to the heirs of Holocaust victims, it has been pleased to support a number of the families’ requests for Stolpersteine in memory of their loved ones. Stolpersteine are placed only in cases where surviving relatives agree to them.
Each Stolperstein is embedded in the pavement outside the person’s last known home. A hand-engraved 10 by 10 centimetre brass plaque on the stone’s surface shows the victim’s name, date of birth, date of arrest or deportation, and the place and date of death. The stones lie flat in the pavement and often prompt passers by to stop and reflect on those who were persecuted.
Since 1992, nearly 75,000 stumbling stones have been laid in at least 1,200 locations in more than 20 European and other countries, including Germany, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and Ukraine. To date Mondex has arranged to place these Stolpersteine in The Netherlands and is currently preparing additional placements in Germany and France.
Expressing the common desire of people across Europe and the world to commemorate people who lost their lives during the Holocaust, the Stolpersteine foundation is a charitable organization and accepts requests for Stolpersteine through their website at https://www.stolpersteine.eu/en/home.
In 2022 Mondex began to help families in Ukraine by shipping food to those in need. To date 41,633 kilograms of food have been proudly donated.
