A brass plaque on a quiet Offenburg street: remembering Berta Hammel
Walk along Gaswerkstraße in Offenburg and you will find a small brass plaque set flush into the pavement in front of number 17. The inscription reads: "HIER WOHNTE BERTA HAMMEL GEB. BENSINGER JG. 1862 DEPORTIERT RIVESALTES TOT 25.2.1941." This is a Stolperstein—a stumbling stone—one of Europe's most powerful memorial forms. You literally trip over history. The plaque marks where Berta Hammel, born in 1862 as Berta Bensinger, lived before she was deported to the Rivesaltes camp in France and died there in 1941. By visiting this single square of brass, you encounter not a abstract tragedy but a specific life: a widow, a mother, a woman who lived in this neighbourhood.
What the Stolperstein tells, and what it asks of you
Berta Hammel married Joseph Hammel in 1886 and lived first in nearby Freistett. After her husband's death in 1924, she eventually moved to Offenburg with her daughter Irma. She had lost her son Siegfried to the First World War in 1914. On 22 October 1940, Berta was deported—first to the camp at Gurs, then transferred to Rivesaltes. She died there on 25 March 1941, at seventy-nine years old. The Stolperstein project, begun in Germany in the 1990s, places these brass plaques at the last known addresses of Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Each one asks you to stop, to read, to know the name and date. Not statistics. A person.
Finding it, and making it part of your visit
The Stolperstein lies on Gaswerkstraße in Offenburg's residential streets, a short walk from the town centre. You might visit it as a deliberate pause during a day spent exploring Offenburg's other attractions—the wine trail that loops through Rammersweier, Zell-Weierbach, and Fessenbach, or the Brandeckturm viewpoint with its panorama across the Black Forest and towards Alsace. Or you might cycle the Kinzig Valley route that passes through the town. The plaque itself takes only moments to read, but the weight of what it records lingers. There is no entry fee, no opening hours—it is always there, on the street where Berta lived.
Nearby memorials and related history
Offenburg holds other memorials to its Jewish community and victims of persecution. While exploring the town, you may encounter other Stolpersteine at different addresses, or visit the Museum im Ritterhaus, which documents local culture, history, and heritage. The Schulmuseum Zell-Weierbach offers another window into the region's past. These places collectively tell the story of Offenburg across centuries—a reminder that history is not confined to grand monuments, but lives in the streets we walk.
Standing on Gaswerkstraße and reading Berta Hammel's name is an invitation to remember one life fully, and through it, countless others. It takes only a moment to stop and bear witness.