New ‘memorial cobblestones’ honouring Holocaust victims unveiled in Brussels

Four new cobblestones were set in a Brussels city-centre pavement on Friday to mark the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Association for the Memory of the Shoah (AMS) chose to lay the four paving stones in Rue des Tanneurs, where 350 Jews were deported during World War Two.

The ceremony took place in the presence of pupils from the German school of Wezembeek-Oppem, schools from Ixelles and Molenbeek in Brussels, as well as a school from Herve in the province of Liège.

Brussels city alderman for mobility and public works Bart Dhondt also participated in the memorial ceremony.

The newly-installed stones pay homage to Etta-Idessa Shultz and her children Rosa, Henri and Léon. They join a memorial stone that had previously been installed for her husband, Icek Schultz. The family were deported from Mechelen to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in 1944.

Another unveiling ceremony was held in Bois de la Cambre on Friday, with commemorative plaques honouring the three Holocaust resistance fighters, Youra Livschitz, Jean Franklemon and Robert Maistriau.

Photo: © Belga/Gabriel Mitran