HIER WOHNTE
ESTERA „JENNY“
YASGUR-DRILLER
JG. 1902
FLUCHT 1939 BELGIEN
INTERNIERT MECHELEN
DEPORTIERT 4.4.1944
AUSCHWITZ
1944 BERGEN BELSEN
BEFREIT/ÜBERLEBT
Mark Schwartz ist der Sohn von Sonia Yasgur Schwartz, einer Cousine von Jenny Yasgur-Driller. Richard Schepard ist Neffe von Estera Yasgur-Driller, der Schwester seiner Mutter, Ellen Yasgur Schepard. Beide haben an der Verlegung der Stolpersteine für die Familie Driller in Berlin teilgenommen. Mark Schwartz hielt danach diese Ansprache:
„Willkommen, Welcome
ברוך הבא,
My cousin Richard Schepard and I would like to thank you very much for coming to this Stolperstein ceremony. We thank the committee here in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and the artist, Guenter Demnig, for making this a reality for us.
Mein Vetter Richard und ich bedanken uns sehr, dass Sie diese Stolpersteine-Zeremonie begleiten.
בן דודי ריצ’רד ואני מודים לכם שבאתם לטקס שטולפרשטיין הזה. מאד מתרגש.
I will continue in English to keep this shorter.
Jenny Yasgur Driller was my mother’s first cousin. She was one of nine children. The family lived in Berezin, Belarus, by Minsk. They were quite prosperous. The family fled the new Communist regime and settled in Berlin, including five of Jenny’s siblings.
Of the nine siblings, one died as a young man in the Red Army in 1921 and a sister was married to a Yugoslavian and was killed there. Sisters Sonia, Rachel and Richard’s mother, Ellen, and brother Alex managed to escape.
The Driller family fled to Belgium in 1939. Leon Driller as you can see on his Stein, was killed in a camp in France. On April 4, 1944, Jenny and young Peter were transported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. Jenny was then sent to Bergen-Belsen, where she was freed by the British. She returned to Belgium in hopes of being reunited with Leon and Peter.
Jenny died in New York in 1991 at the age of 89, where she had a dignified burial. Finally, here, in front of the last residence where the Driller family lived by their own free choice, these Stolpersteine symbolize a final resting place for this little family, giving Leon and Peter some semblance of a grave and a memory plaque, together with their wife and mother, Jenny.
As someone who has made a name for himself in German/Jewish Dialog, let me say this: we must all learn from the past, apply its teachings to the present, with our attention to the future, and may all of us work together, all races, creeds and nationalities, so that something like the Shoa, the Holocaust never happens again.
Wir müssen von der Vergangenheit lernen, in der Gegenwart leben, mit Blick in die Zukunft. Zusammen ist es unsere schwere Aufgabe zu schaffen, dass eine Greueltat wie der Holocaust nie wieder passiert.
Nie wieder, Nunca Jamás, Plus Jamais, לעולם עוד שוב, לעולם עוד לא..
NEVER, NEVER NEVER AGAIN! Let us say Kaddish. (…)”