The deportations of the Jewish population of Halberstadt took place on April 12, 1942 and November 22, 1942.

On April 12, 1942, all “able-bodied” Jews had to report in front of the registry office, right across from the west portal of the Halberstadt Cathedral. From there, the approximately 120 people had to walk to the train station. On that day they were taken by train to a transit camp in Magdeburg and deported to the Warsaw Ghetto on April 14, 1942. There, their traces were lost and it is not known where the Jews of Halberstadt were murdered.

On November 22, 1942, the “non-able-bodied” Jews were deported.  The residents of the Jewish nursing home Newe Menucho on Wilhemstrasse No. 15 and those living in the Judenhaus on Westendorf No. 15 were taken to the Halberstadt train station by truck and from there by train to the Theresienstadt camp. The death notices of the Theresienstadt camp document their murders.

Forty years later, on the initiative of the reform congregation of Our Lady, a memorial commemorating the deportations was to be erected in the middle of the square in front of the west portal. However, the regional government did not permit this. Therefore, the burned-out menorah with the verse “the Almighty does not pervert justice” (Job 34:12) was installed directly next to the west portal.

In 1992, on the 50^th anniversary of the deportations, the original plan could be enacted. The Stones of Remembrance, standing close together in the middle of the Cathedral Square, bear the names and dates of birth of the Jews deported in April and November 1942. The names of those killed as a result of the November Pogrom in 1938 or who took their own lives before being deported have been added.