Stolpersteine in Hradec Králové Region

The Stolpersteine in the Královéhradecký kraj lists the Stolpersteine in the region Královéhradecký kraj in the north-east of Bohemia. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.

Generally, the stumbling blocks are posed in front of the building where the victims had their last self chosen residence. The name of the Stolpersteine in Czech is: Kameny zmizelých, stones of the disappeared.

Náchod
The history of the family Goldschmid in Náchod dates back to 1636, when Moses Jacob Goldschmid was born there. In 1846 Samuel Golschmid founded a textile plant. The company was thereafter led by his son Max Michael Goldschmid (1847 in Náchod — 1911 in Náchod) and subsequently by his grandson Hanuš Goldschmid (1891 in Náchod — 1966 in São Paulo, Brazil). In 1930s the factory had 150 looms and about 300 employees. Today, the building does not exist any longer. Hanuš Goldschmid had five sisters, all born in Náchod, all murdered by the Nazi regime in concentration camps.


 * Persons with relevance to the collocations in Nachod
 * Michael Kraus, born in 1930 in Náchod, was the main initiator of the Stolperstein collocations for the five sisters. He was the son of physician Karl Kraus and Lola Goldschmidová who was murdered in Stutthof. Due to his age and his state of health he could not attend at the Stolperstein collocations. Previously, he had visited Náchod and Kroměříž in 2010 as well as Mauthausen in 2015. During 2015 he also published his diary, in which he described his experiences in Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and Mauthausen from 1942 to 1945.
 * Karl Kraus was a medical doctor in Náchod who had a very good reputation. He became the inspiration for the character of the doctor in the story of Doctor Strass by Josef Škvorecký, published in his collection of short stories Menorah. He and his family lived in a villa with a tower directly opposite the Stráníková sanatorium. The doctor had his practice in his own house. The story of Škvorecký corresponds largely with the truth, but the conclusion was different. Doctor Kraus was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Dates of collocations
According to the website of Gunter Demnig the Stolperstein of Kostelec nad Orlicí was posed on 29 October 2012, those in Náchod were placed on 2 August 2016. The Czech Stolperstein project was initiated in 2008 by the Česká unie židovské mládeže (Czech Union of Jewish Youth) and was realized with the patronage of the Mayor of Prague.