08/10/2026
Sientje Swaab. 14 years old. Murdered in 1943.
She was my grandmother’s cousin. And we know almost nothing about her. We don’t know what her last months and moments were like. We can only imagine the fear. The terror. The unknown.
Yesterday, on October 7th, we placed a stone for her.
A struikelsteen — a stumbling stone. A small brass cobblestone placed in the street outside the last known address of those murdered in the Holocaust. You walk past them every day without knowing. Until you stop. Until you read the name.
Hers is around the corner from my son’s school. On streets she may have walked too.
In Judaism, someone isn’t truly gone until you stop speaking their name.
So we speak it.
Sientje Swaab. We remember you. 🕯️
If you ever come across a struikelsteen — stop. Read the name. Let their life not be forgotten.
