Stolpersteine for Family Blumenstein
There were four new Stolpersteine installed outside our Yard at Barnimstr.last week.
District Mayor Clara Herrmann said: "With the Stolpersteine we commemorate those who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis. They remind us all every day on our doorsteps that this part of history must never be repeated. With the Stolpersteine we make a central contribution against historical revisionism and Holocaust denial. As a district, we have a responsibility to show our face against right-wing extremism, racism and anti-Semitism".
"On Wednesday, 10 May 2023, four Stolpersteine will be placed at Barnimstr. 12 at 4 p.m. for Samuel, Jenny, Dorothea and Inge Blumenstein. The Jewish Blumenstein family lived at Barnimstr. 12 until their emigration. Samuel Blumenstein was born in Sławków (Russian Empire) in 1896. He learned the trade of a tailor and moved to Berlin after the First World War. In 1925 he and Jenny, née Brinewitsch (1898 in Berlin) married. The couple had two daughters: Dorothea (1926) and Inge (*1928). Around 1931, the Blumenstein family moved to Barnimstr. 12. Samuel Blumenstein was the owner of a workshop for making men's clothing and employed several workers.
Since Jews had been increasingly disenfranchised and persecuted since 1933, the couple tried intensively in the late 1930s to obtain a visa for any country in order to be able to leave Germany. At the end of May 1939, Samuel Blumenstein was arrested and ordered to leave "Reich territory" by the end of June 1939. His wife managed to procure emigration papers for Shanghai and thus obtained his release. The family left Berlin in a hurry on 20 June 1939.
In Shanghai, the family lived with many other Jewish refugees from Europe in cramped, very simple conditions. They suffered from the climate, the rampant diseases there, such as dysentery, and the inadequate food supply. The Blumenstein family was able to leave Shanghai around 1950 and emigrate to the USA.
The Stolpersteine for the Blumenstein family were initiated by a relative."
-by Sven Eric Rapp (Deputy Head of Hort)
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