The memorial plaque for Ilse Weber will be designed by Jiří Markevič

The winner of the public competition for the memorial plaque for Ilse Weberová is architect Jiří Markevič, whose design impressed the expert jury both in its handling of the theme and its approach to the material and the location where the plaque will be installed. The expert jury reached a unanimous decision on the winner. The competition was announced by the Antiquariat and the Fiducia association in February of this year. The memorial plaque, which will commemorate the famous native of Vítkovice, writer and composer Ilse Weberová, will be placed on the post office building in Vítkovice. It is designed from stainless steel, which will be bent, engraved, and processed using the technique of graphic etching. The author creatively works with the motif of thick wavy hair – the text will gradually reveal itself to passersby, along with the reflection of Ilse Weberová's face, hidden beneath the thick hair. The reflection of the hidden face of the woman who died prematurely at the age of 41 with her younger son in the gas chamber at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp will be protected from the rain by the thick wavy hair, ensuring that the face remains undamaged, just as her artistic legacy remains undamaged.
The memorial plaque will be financed by a donation from Ilona Rozehnalová, specifically from the financial reward she received as part of the City of Ostrava Award, which she donated to the Fiducia association for the creation of memorial plaques for significant native women of Ostrava.
The unveiling of the memorial plaque is planned for June 23, 2022, at 6:00 PM.
The presentation of the competition designs with the participation of the jury members will take place on June 16, 2022, at 6:00 PM in Fiducia.
You can view all competition designs here.
Architect Jiří Markevič works in the Ostrava region. In 2021, he, along with Jaroslav Sedlák, received first prize in the competition Rudolf Eitelberger Award 2021 for the reconstruction and expansion of ZŠ Vřesovice. In 2021, he also realized an insect house for the Fiducia association at Černá louka in Ostrava, which was selected as one of eight insect houses by the expert jury in the competition for the Ostrava insect furniture.

The memorial plaque will be placed on the building at Šalounova 18, where the Czech Post currently resides. The house was the long-term residence of Ilse Weberová (1903–1944), a native of Vítkovice, a Jewish writer and composer.
Ilse Weberová was a writer of children's books, a poet, a musician, and an extraordinary figure in the interwar Jewish community of Ostrava. She was born in the former Vítkovice rectory, spoke excellent Czech in addition to her native German, and considered herself a patriotic citizen of Vítkovice. She published several books of Jewish fairy tales, worked with the Ostrava radio studio, composed songs, and corresponded with Karel Čapek. In February 1942, she was deported to Theresienstadt, where she selflessly worked as a children’s caregiver (composing and singing lullabies for imprisoned children) and continued her literary work under difficult conditions. Her poems and other texts from that time were preserved thanks to an ingenious hiding place in a tool shed and are compiled in the 2012 publication "When Will Our Suffering End." The life of this brave and exceptional individual tragically ended in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Many of her songs and set verses from the Theresienstadt ghetto became "popular" and are now part of the repertoire of many prominent performers and choirs from around the world (most notably the lullaby Wiegala or the ballad Ich wandre durch Theresienstadt).

The memorial plaque will be created in collaboration with the beautification association Za krásnou Ostravu.
We thank the municipal district of Vítkovice for their help and willingness.