The “wall of names” monument was presented by Mil Lorang, president of MemoShoah Luxembourg, at the Cercle Cité on Thursday.
The press conference followed a recent publication on the renowned “Revue d’histoire de la Shoah”, which focused on Luxembourg in particular. Among the points discussed on Thursday was the project for a new memorial.
After “Stolpersteiner” or “stumbling stones” were laid in Junglinster in 2021 for Holocaust victims, but also Wehrmacht soldiers, it was clear that such an amalgam could not be permitted to happen again.
“The idea was to take names of Jewish victims from nowhere and clearly position ourselves against the will of the Nazi regime,” Lorang said. “In order to erase the memories of those people forever after they were killed.”
The project of collecting names for the monument was launched in 2022, with 1,222 names found in total.
Lorang explained the criteria for the name collection as follows:
“We looked at people who lived in Luxembourg prior to 10 May 1940, and those who were deported from Luxembourg, France, Belgium, and even Germany in rare cases, who died during deportations. Secondly, we looked for those who were not deported, but died as a result of Nazi persecution, such as people who died in internment camps or committed suicide to avoid deportation. Thirdly, we looked for people who were killed as a result of war crimes, notably those who joined the French or Belgian resistance movements.”
The monument will take the form of a metal structure engraved with the 1,222 names, and will be located close to the Kaddish monument behind the Luxembourg City cathedral.
