Odenkirchen, Mönchengladbach – In Odenkirchen, two memorial plaques were willfully removed from the sidewalk to commemorate people who were arrested, deported and, in most cases, murdered by the Nazis.
A 69-year-old witness reported to the police and said that two of the five stumbling blocks on Kohrbleiche st. were missing. A search for the brass stones in the vicinity of the crime scene was negative. According to the witness, the theft happened between 8 p.m. Sunday and 10 a.m. Monday.
The stumbling blocks were broken out by Hermine Heimann and her sister Bertha Else. Bertha and Hermine were deported from Düsseldorf to the Riga ghetto on December 10, 1941. On August 9, 1944, Hermine was taken to the Stutthof concentration camp, where she was murdered on November 25, 1944. Bertha was murdered in Riga.
