Two projects on commemoration of Nazi, Stalin repressions' victims launched in Moldovan capital

Chisinau, 24 July /MOLDPRES/ - The Agency of Inspection and Restoration of Monuments launched two projects on the commemoration of victims of Nazism and Stalin’s repressions in Chisinau today.

The projects will be implemented in partnership with the Jewish Community of Moldova, Memoria (Memory) Centre for Rehabilitation of Torture Victims, with the financial support of the United States Embassy in Chisinau.   

At a news conference today, a chief specialist at the aforementioned Agency, Victor Popovici, said that the project titled, Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stone - in German) represented a European project on commemorating victims of Nazism. The initiative implies the setting of a concrete cub, with the surface of brass outside the house where victims lived. The project was initiated in 1993, at an initiative by a German artist, Gunter Demnig, and more than 67,000 plaques have been set in 22 states so far. The price of a cub is 120 euros.

The second project, Popovici noted, titled, The Last Address, was aimed at commemorating the victims of Stalin’s political repressions. It consists in setting commemorative plaques on houses’ facades, the last residence address of the victims. The initiative was launched by a group made up of historians, activists, journalists, architects and writers, in Russia in 2014. The initiators inspired from the European project Stolpersteine. The project is implemented in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Moldova and is to be launched in Georgia, Germany, Latvia, Poland and Romania. The cost of one plaque is 70 U.S. dollars.    

The first plaque was set on the façade of a house on the Alexandru cel Bun Street 17, where Moise Berliand lived, who died in the extermination camp Auschwitz Birkenau.  

(Reporter N. Roibu, editor A. Raileanu)