Memorial stone Taufkirchen

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The Taufkirchen memorial stone was ceremoniously unveiled on May 15, 2014 in Gallenbach (municipality of Taufkirchen (district of Mühldorf am Inn) ). The inscription on the memorial stone reads:

“ Stefan Duda, b. February 19, 1915, a young Polish slave laborer from the Kielce district, was murdered here on October 10, 1941 by the Gestapo and the SS in a show execution.
The love between him and a young woman from Taufkirchen had contradicted the racist ideology of the Nazi regime .
This memorial stone was inaugurated on May 15, 2014 as a token of appreciation for Stefan Duda and for lively humanity .
The true measure of life is memory - Walter Benjamin "

The memorial plaque designed by the sculptor Franziska Kreipl-Poller was created on the initiative of the local landlords Claudia Häußler-Maier and Hilarius Häußler against the resistance of the councilors, who spoke out against the initiative with 7 against 6 votes.

The forced laborer Duda and his brother were assigned to the farming families in Taufkirchen as auxiliaries. The Mayerhofer family got Stefan Duda. Her daughter Anna fell in love with the young man, although such liaisons were denounced as racial disgrace . Both were brought before the Nazi judiciary because of the Poland decrees , Stefan Duda was sent to the Dachau concentration camp and was publicly executed nine months later, on October 10, 1941. Anna Mayerhofer was initially held in police custody for a year in the local court prison in Mühldorf am Inn, was only released for a short time and was then immediately taken back by the Gestapo to the Ravensbrück concentration camp as inmate 9475/4527. She was released in October 1942.

The tragic love story was honored in May 2015 by the school theater of the Gymnasium Gars with the amateur play "Stein des AnDenkens".

The Polish painter Andreas Białas, who lives in Bavaria, found the victim's family living in Poland in Ociesięki ( municipality of Raków ). On May 5, 2019, the Duda family members were able to attend a May service at the memorial stone.

In 2013, the author and journalist Thomas Grasberger was doing research for his book “Stenz. Die Lust des Südens ”came across material on the Stefan Duda case in the Mühldorf City Archives and in the Munich State Archives, which he dealt with in the chapter“ Forbidden Love ”.

During a reading from the book on November 4, 2013 in the Gasthaus von Gallenbach, there was a lively discussion in which the events that had long been repressed at the location came up again.

The American historian John J. Delaney, Professor of History at the Kutztown University of Pennsylvania , USA, had already mentioned the Stefan Duda case in 1995 in his doctoral thesis "Rural Catholics, Polish workers and Nazi racial policy in Bavaria".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ munich.mfa.gov.pl: Memorial stone unveiling for a Polish slave laborer after 73 years

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