Category: Stolpersteine

On 15 October 2025, a memorial stone (Stolperstein) was laid in Prague’s Holešovice district, in front of the house at U Smaltovny 19, to commemorate lawyer JUDr. Hanuš (Hans) Polach.

Hanuš Polach was born in 1899 in Vienna. He graduated from the Faculty of Law of the German University in Prague, where he later worked as a trainee lawyer. He subsequently served as a legal counsel for a pension insurance company. Together with his wife Elisabeth, née Adler from Hamburg, and their daughter Dita, he lived in a modern “electric” house on U Smaltovny Street.

After the establishment of the Protectorate, Hanuš Polach lost his job and the family was forced to leave their apartment in Holešovice. On 20 November 1942, they were deported to the Terezín ghetto, and a year later transferred to Auschwitz. Hanuš Polach was killed there on 5 February 1944; his wife died several months after the end of the war as a result of her imprisonment.

Only their daughter Dita survived. Two years after the war, she married Ota Kraus, and in 1949 the couple emigrated to Israel with their young daughter.

Stolpersteine, small brass cubes set into the pavement, commemorate the victims of Nazi persecution – those who were murdered, deported, or forced to flee. In Prague alone, there are now more than 850.

If you would like to contribute to their maintenance, you can help by cleaning the stones (instructions here). You can send the result to info@stolpersteinecz.cz or share it on social media using the hashtag #cistimeStolpersteine.

cover photo: Hana Janišová

On September 16 and 17, fifty-one new Stolpersteine were laid at twenty-five locations in Prague. With this act, the city once again commemorated the victims of the Nazi regime and their stories.

The Stolpersteine project makes a significant contribution to society’s living memory – it draws attention to the horrors and crimes of Nazism and restores to the public space the names of those who were silenced.

The laying of the stones is requested not only by the victims’ relatives but often also by civic organizations or even the homeowners themselves. Each stone thus becomes a small act of remembrance – a tribute to a specific person and their symbolic return home.

Among the figures honored with Stolpersteine this year were, for example, Pavel Tigrid and Karel Švenk, the author of the Terezín anthem.

Pokládání kamenů se tradičně účastní řada významných osobností. Letos mezi ně patřili velvyslanci Německa a Rakouska, starosta Prahy 7, zastupitelé Magistrátu hl. města Prahy a městských částí Praha 2 a Praha 3, ředitelé Česko-německého fondu budoucnosti, ředitelka Národního pedagogického muzea a mnoho dalších.

Among the important witnesses to the laying of Stolpersteine were also children from the Lauder Schools.

Over the past thirteen years, approximately 880 Stolpersteine have been laid in Prague. Their locations and the stories of individual victims can be found at www.stolpersteinecz.cz.

Ve dnech 16. a 17. září 2025 proběhne v Praze další kolo pokládání Stolpersteine.

Více informací o tomto projektu můžete najít na stránce Memory or directly www.stolpersteinecz.cz.