"Destroyed lives cannot be replaced"
We begin with the laying of the Stolpersteine in Mainstockheim Mühlweg 9 in front of the former home of the Rindsberg family on November 20, 2011, in the presence of, among others, Mayor Karl-Dieter Fuchs and representatives of the Association for the Promotion of the Former Kitzingen Synagogue and the Catholic parish of St. Gumbert, which now uses the former synagogue as a Catholic church. The Stolpersteine were laid in memory of his murdered parents Siegfried and Rika Rindsberg and his two brothers Herbert and Kurt.
An updated excerpt from the Main-Post Kitzingen report from November 23, 2011 on the biography of the Rindsberg family:
"Siegfried Rindsberg was a wine merchant and co-founder and chairman of the 1st FC Mainstockheim. He and his son Werner were arrested during the Pogrom Night of 1938. The son was released after three days, the father was deported to Dachau for several weeks. Siegfried Rindsberg's elderly mother died in a retirement home in Würzburg shortly after the family was deported in 1942. Werner Rindsberg was the only member of the family to survive the Nazi terror. Until his death in 2016, he lived under the name Walter W. Reed in the town of Wilmette in the state of Illinois in the USA. He was only able to survive because his father had sent him to Belgium to attend school. After the war began in 1940, the then 16-year-old managed to escape to the south of France together with around 100 other children, where they survived the war in an adventurous way and became known as "the children of La Hille".
In a letter read out by Günter Voit, whose grandfather had worked closely with the Rindsberg family, Reed sent his thanks to Mainstockheim. Reed wrote that his father had been an honorable employer and a popular fellow citizen, his brothers Herbert and Karl two decent boys whose lives had been taken away all too soon and his mother had been known as a respected housewife.
What had happened to them and millions of innocent victims could not be undone. "Destroyed lives cannot be replaced," Reed said in his letter. Placing such stumbling blocks is the only way to compensate for the injustice of that time. In return, he and his family want to convey their deep gratitude and admiration to the municipality of Mainstockheim.
During his speech, Reed demonstratively held up his newly acquired German passport as a sign of his attachment to his native Germany and Mainstockheim in particular. Reed maintained close contact with Kitzingen and Mainstockheim, researched the history and circumstances of his family extensively and repeatedly traveled to Germany to tell his story at schools.
In 2007, he visited the former Izbica concentration camp in Poland with a delegation from the district of Kitzingen and unveiled a stone in memory of the Franconian Jews. He tirelessly went to schools, both in Germany and in the USA, and answered questions. Always striving for enlightenment and never accusing.
Incidentally, my first contact came about in 1981 when I wrote to Walter Reed. That was the beginning of a long friendship and the origin of his research into his past and that of his family.
