A Journey of Memory: Honoring Lives Lost Through History

by Gabor Por · May 19, 2025

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Thoughts on Stumbling Stones by Bonnie Suchman

One hallmark of great literature is its lingering impact on readers, and by that measure, Stumbling Stones is nothing short of a triumph. I read it months ago, and it still feels unfinished; it still has purpose in my life. I want to arrange one or more stumbling stones, Stolpersteine or, as it is known in Hungarian, “botlatókő”, commemorating my relative(s) who were killed during the Holocaust. Some or even most European Jews know exactly how many of their relatives were killed during World War II. I am not one of them, even though I have been working on my family tree on and off for the last 15 years. The number is probably between 10 and 50. I know that I will accomplish this goal sooner or later. I want to thank the author and the book for the inspiration. As a third-generation Shoah survivor, this will not bring closure to anything, but I will feel the right thing to do.

But how exactly did the book generate the inspiration? I have known about “stumbling stones” for a long time. After all, the first one in Budapest, where I grew up, was set 18 years ago. In case you don’t know: these “brass plates on the sidewalks […] identified Jews who once lived at the addresses, but had been persecuted by the Nazis [and] had been placed around many cities in Europe to remember those who were either murdered or forced to leave their homes during the Holocaust.” The book starts with the American author traveling to Tel-Aviv and spending a few hours in Frankfurt, where her husband’s family was from. There, they discover the stumbling stones and that sends them down the path, not just an in-depth family research, but ultimately dramatizing the family members’ lives, both Holocaust victims and survivors.

“Dramatizing” may not be the best word, because the people in this book were as real as anyone you know. This is the most outstanding feature of the book: the characters are believable, they have real drives, faults, desires, skills, fears, and biases. They truly came alive and made me understand the frog’s feelings even better, who, in the metaphor, does not realize that it is slowly being boiled alive. It was truly unbelievable how, step by step, German Jewry lost privileges, rights, money, freedoms, and ultimately their lives by the slow and cruel hands of engineered deprivation and the final solution. The book connects the individuals with history in the context of evolving family dynamics. It is a true family saga, where we, the readers, know and fear the outcome from the very beginning, but still secretly hope that someone survives.

Little was known about the personality of Alice, the relative of the author’s husband, who is the book’s main protagonist. Anything beyond the facts that can be established based on records may have been lost in time. This is true for most people of the past, of whom there is no explicit documentation. Ms. Suchman extensively researched her family for the non-fiction family history book Broken Promises. In this book, she fills in the picture. This may not be historically accurate, but it is a superb work of literature and an homage to the ones killed.

Soon after I finished the book, I also had a layover for a few hours in Frankfurt. I was tempted to visit the actual locations described in the book, which are all real, but ended up not doing so. Nevertheless, it was another layer of what made this book personal. It could have been my family, and in some ways, it was. I wish I had the perseverance for researching, imagination for turning dry facts into vivid stories, and the writing skills that Suchman has.

Her prose focuses on Alice’s internal struggles and external interactions as she navigates the complexities of her life. To put it another way, the text balances Alice’s aspirations with the societal constraints and history itself, the writing style reflects broader themes of identity, choice, and the evolving role of women. The flowing rhythm, seamlessly integrated dialogue, and rich, detailed narrative style made it easy to read. At the same time, it was hard to read because of hindsight knowledge. Which is exactly the point of the book and the stumbling stones themselves: the importance of remembering Holocaust victims as individuals and preserving their individual stories. This book is among the best doing so.