A Dutch art conservationist based in Soho will be the first person honoured in the UK by a commemorative “stumbling stone”

Around 80,000 Stolpersteins (“stumbling stones”) have been installed in pavements across Europe since the scheme started in 1992, with each tiny plaque marking the last known address of a Holocaust victim. Now, the UK will unveil its first Stolperstein on 30 May at Golden Square in London’s Soho, to mark the final home of Dutch art conservationist Ada Van Dantzig. She left the safety of London to help her parents escape to Switzerland but was captured in France by the Nazis in 1943.

The campaign to raise money for the Soho Stolperstein has been led by Morwenna Blewett, from Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. “Because the stones are location specific and Britain wasn’t invaded, there aren’t many locations that qualify in the UK,” says Blewett. The ceremony is open to the public.

Two other commemorative plaques for Jewish figures have also been installed recently. One is for playwright Arnold Wesker on the site of his old primary school at Northwold Road, Hackney. The other is in Malvern, Worcestershire, to celebrate Frieda Salvendy, an Austrian Expressionist artist who escaped to England before World War II. The plaque is at Salvendy’s last home, Court House Care Home. The plaques are the initiative of historian Martin Sugarman and were funded by Jerry Klinger of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.

By Peter Watts

Ada Van Dantzig’s Stolperstein will be unveiled at 11am on Monday 30 May at Golden Square, London.

This article appears in the Spring 2022 issue of JR.