"Why don’t I have grandparents?”

An innocent question, asked decades ago by a nine-year-old boy playing on the beach in Knokke, Belgium.

The answer came through tears – his mother, Rosa Bauernfreund (née Reinhold–Fuhrer), barely able to speak through her grief, managed only: “They were killed in the war.”

Fast forward to April 27, 2025. That same boy – Sonny Bauernfreund, now a great–grandfather – stood on Zurenborg Street in Antwerp, watching as brass Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) were embedded into the pavement outside his grandparents’ former home.

With a touch of irony, he reflected, “We’ve come here to remember the people whose names are inscribed on these stones – but we do not remember them because we never knew them.”

Stolperstein (credit: COURTESY THE FAMILY)

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