Stolperstein is the German word for "stumbling block", "obstacle", or "something in the way". (The plural form of the word is Stolpersteine.) The artist Gunter Demnig has given this word a new meaning, that of a small, cobblestone-sized memorial for a single victim of Nazism. These memorials commemorate individuals – both those who died and survivors – who were consigned by the Nazis to prisons, euthanasia facilities, sterilization clinics, concentration camps, and extermination camps, as well as those who responded to persecution by emigrating or committing suicide.
While the vast majority of stolpersteine commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust, others have been placed for Sinti and Romani people (also called gypsies), homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Black people, Christians (both Protestants and Catholics) opposed to the Nazis, members of the Communist Party and the Resistance, military deserters, and the physically and mentally disabled.
The list of places that have stolpersteine now extends to several countries and hundreds of cities and towns.
Contents |
Schools, relatives, and various organizations research facts about people who were deported or persecuted during the Nazi regime. The database of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem provides more information.[1]
Once the research is done, Demnig manufactures a concrete cube of 10 cm (4 inches), which he covers with a sheet of brass. Then he stamps the details of the individual; the name, year of birth and the fate, as well as the dates of deportation and death, if known. The words “Hier wohnte” ("here lived") grace most of the memorials, though others are installed at the individual's place of employment and refer instead to the work. The stolperstein is then laid flush with the pavement or sidewalk in front of the last residence of the victim.[2]
The cost of the stolpersteine is covered by donations, collections, individual citizens, contemporary witnesses, school classes, or communities. One stolperstein costs €95,[3][4] a price that has remained the same since the project's inception. In 2012, the price will increase to €120.[5]
After Demnig had the idea in 1993, the first exhibition took place in 1994 in Cologne. The then priest of the Antoniter church encouraged the project. In 1995, Demnig began to install stolpersteine on trial, without a permit, in Cologne; then in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin. In 1996, he set out 55 stolpersteine in Berlin within the scope of the project “Artists Research Auschwitz”.[2] In 1997, he mounted the first two stolpersteine for the Jehovah's Witnesses Matthias and Johann Nobis in St. Georgen, Austria on the suggestion of Andreas Maislinger, founder of Arts Initiative KNIE and the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service. Four years later, he received permission to install 600 more stolpersteine in Cologne.
There are thousands of stolperstein memorials located in cities and towns in Germany.[6] Below are just a few of the hundreds of localities, including some of the cities with thousands of memorials each. A more complete list can be found on the list of cities that have stolpersteine.
Bamberg: on Franz-Ludwig-Strasse, almost half of the homes are marked by stolpersteine.
Berlin: there are about 2,950 stolpersteine.
Bonn: there are over 100 stolpersteine in the center of town and other quarters.
Cologne: by the beginning of 2005, 1,400 stolpersteine had been placed.
Essen: over 170 stolpersteine have been placed in more than 20 quarters since 2004.
Frankfurt am Main: more than 200 stolpersteine have been placed in 15 quarters with the assistance of the Jewish Museum. Over 12,000 Jews were deported and murdered by the Nazis.
Freiburg im Breisgau: since 2002, about 270 stolpersteine have been installed with the help of civil rights organizations in close partnership with the municipality.
Hamburg: as of April 15, 2009, there are 2,600 stolpersteine. There’s another stolperstein in memoriam of a former senator, 15 paces to the right of the entrance of Hamburg’s town hall. Many papers report about the project and expand the research. Between 1941 and 1945 10,000 Jews were deported from Hamburg.
Karlsruhe: more than 140 stolpersteine have been placed, the first on March 18, 2005.
Konstanz: the first three stolpersteine were placed in September 2006. One was for a Jewish deportee, one for a euthanasia victim and one for a political victim.
Magdeburg: the first 13 stolpersteine were installed on March 13, 2007. There are more than 70 all over the city.
Neuruppin there are 10 stolpersteine for Jews and 6 stolpersteine for "euthanasia" victims from the area; about 1000 victims locally were exterminated under T4.[7]
Stuttgart: there are over 500 stolpersteine in the city and outlying suburbs.
Überlingen: there are three stolpersteine, placed in front of the District Administration office, based on a book about a persecuted family.
Quakenbrück: Stolpersteine were recently placed on the site of the synagogue that was burnt down on the 10th November 1938. The background of some of those people whose names they commemorate can be seen and heard in the oscar winning documentary "Into the Arms of Strangers"
Braunau am Inn: stolpersteine were laid on August 11, 2006 in Braunau (the city of Adolf Hitler's birth) in Upper Austria and in District 11.
Mödling (near Vienna): 22 stolpersteine have been laid since August 2006.
Salzburg: three stolpersteine were installed in August 2007.
St. Georgen, Austria (near Salzburg): by 1997, two stolpersteine were installed for Jehovah's Witnesses, but were later destroyed. Two planned additional stolpersteine were cancelled after critics complained. The two destroyed were replaced in 2006.
Vienna: Demnig’s idea has been further developed since 2005. Stolpersteine have been laid in the second district (Leopoldstadt) around Volkertplatz. In addition, a "memorial path" is being planned for the second discrict.
There are stolpersteine in Prague, Kolín, Brno, Neratovice, Teplice, Třeboň, Olomouc and Ostrava.[8]
There have been stolpersteine in Hungary since April 2007. The first stolpersteine were installed on Raday Street, in the center of Budapest. About 600,000 Hungarian Jews were deported and murdered, primarily at Auschwitz.
The first 31 stolpersteine were laid in Rome in January 2010. The memorials are in eight different locations throughout the city.[9][10]
The first Struikelstenen (Dutch for "stolpersteine") were laid in Borne, Overijssel in November 2007.[11] More were installed in other cities[12] in the Netherlands in early 2009 and in April 2010.[13]
Snublesteiner (Norwegian bokmål language for "stolpersteine") have been installed in[14] Oslo — installations that have raised criticism of why victims of racist killings in Norway (of non-Jews and non-ethnic Norwegians) have not been commemmorated with plaques at the site where they were killed.
On July 24, 2009, the 20,000th stolperstein was unveiled in the Rotherbaum district of Hamburg, Germany.[15] In attendance were Gunter Demnig, representatives of the Hamburg government and its Jewish community, and a descendant of the victims memorialized.
As of October 2007, Gunter Demnig had mounted more than 13,000 stolpersteine in more than 280 cities. He expanded his project beyond the borders of Germany to Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Hungary. Some stolpersteine were scheduled to be laid in Poland on September 1, 2006, but permission was withdrawn and the installation was cancelled.
As of May 15, 2010, there were over 22,000 stolpersteine in 530 European cities and towns in eight countries formerly under Nazi control or occupied by Nazi Germany.[6][16] By July 8, 2010, there were over 25,000 stolpersteine in 569 cities and towns.[4] As of June 24, 2011, Demnig had installed 30,000 stolpersteine.[17]
A group of school girls in London, England took on a project involving a stolperstein. It memorializes a Jewish victim named Adolf Kahn, who lived in Münster and died shortly after liberation. His stolperstein was laid on November 25, 2009. Extracts from the school girls' essay were read aloud at the Stolpersteine Exhibition earlier that month. They are the only school group from a country not occupied by the Nazis ever to take on a stolperstein project.
Interest has also come from individuals in America, Israel and elsewhere.
Some owners have objected to stolpersteine being laid in front of their houses because of concerns about depreciation and of not wanting to be reminded daily of Nazi atrocities. In one case, in Cologne, a stolperstein was placed away from the entrance at the edge of the sidewalk, near the street. The city of Villingen-Schwenningen hotly debated the idea of allowing stolpersteine in 2004 and voted against them. The debate, however, has not stopped and has moved into the local press.[18] There is a memorial at the train station and there are plans second memorial.[19]
Munich initially rejected stolpersteine but later relented; in other cities, permission for the project was preceded by long, sometimes emotional discussions. In Krefeld, an officer from the Jewish synagogue said that Demnig's memorials reminded him of how the Nazis had used Jewish grave stones as slabs for sidewalks.[20] A compromise was reached that a stolperstein could be installed if a prospective site was approved by both house's owner and (if applicable) the victim's relatives.[21] Simbach am Inn refused to install a stolperstein in memory of Georg Hauner, who was executed on May 1, 1945, because he deserted in the last days of the Second World War. The city of Pulheim is still debating the issue.[16]
In contrast, Berlin has three full-time municipal employees who support volunteers with the project and are contacts for family members who want to attend an installation.[4]
People’s attention is drawn towards the stolpersteine by reports in newspapers and their personal experience. Their thoughts are directed towards the victims.[6][22][23][24] Cambridge historian, Joseph Pearson, argues that "It is not what is written [on the stolpersteine] which intrigues, because the inscription is insufficient to conjure a person. It is the emptiness, void, lack of information, the maw of the forgotten, which gives the monuments their power and lifts them from the banality of a statistic."[25]
A documentary, Stolperstein was made by Dörte Franke in 2008.[26]
