Een struikelsteentje voor Elly Koperberg (1897-1943)

In memory of the Jewish sisters Elly (Ella Julia) and Kittie (Catharina Helmina) Koperberg, stumbling stones were placed on in the pavement in front of their house, Domstraat 9 in Utrecht, where they lived just before being expelled and murdered in the extermination camp Sobibor. Elly Koperberg published in 1931 her Ph.D. thesis ‘Jungtertiäre und Quartäre Mollusken von Timor’. Two quotes are given from letters of Elly regarding the persecution of Jews in the Netherlands during WWII. In the first one (30 November 1940) she shows her solidarity with the fired Jewish professors and teachers of the University of Utrecht and in the second one (5 July 1942) she writes about the possibility of being killed and of the impossibility, due to travel restrictions, to finish her work. Elly Koperberg is the only malacological author killed by the Nazis. The names of Elly and Kittie are also placed on a plaque in the Utrecht University Hall, revealed 4 May 2011, in memory of all students, professors and staff who became victims of WWII.