History at Ground Level

Since [Gunter Demnig] laid the first stumble stones in Berlin and Cologne in 1996, the project has snowballed. They can be found in more than 200 German cities, with some 1,600 each in Cologne and Berlin. The idea has spread beyond Germany to Austria, where 50 stones have been laid. There are also r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Jerusalem report 2007-03, p.24
Main Author: Krah, Markus
Format: Magazinearticle
Language:English
Subjects:
Demnig, Gunter
Hobrack, Volker
Joffe, Gideon
Knobloch, Charlotte
Schaefer, Paula
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Since [Gunter Demnig] laid the first stumble stones in Berlin and Cologne in 1996, the project has snowballed. They can be found in more than 200 German cities, with some 1,600 each in Cologne and Berlin. The idea has spread beyond Germany to Austria, where 50 stones have been laid. There are also requests from other European countries. Demnig can hardly keep up with the demand. Stumble stones ordered in early 2007 (via the project's website www.stolpersteine.com) will not be laid before spring 2008. Demnig, a sculptor born in 1947 in Berlin, non-Jewish and "with neither victims nor perpetrators in my family," came up with the idea of commemorating victims with plaques in the ground more than 25 years ago. In the 1980s he was known as an artistic "trailblazer," creating long distance trails in the ground to remind people of historical events. In 1990, he laid a 10-mile trail of durable white color all across Cologne to mark the route of the deportation of thousands of gypsies in 1940. Later he set part of it in brass. When an elderly local woman tried to talked him out of it, insisting that no gypsies had ever lived in that neighborhood, Demnig realized that "many people really didn't know that the victims had lived right among them." The stumble stones are an answer to this. Demnig, [Volker Hobrack], and other supporters of the stumble stones reject the arguments of [Charlotte Knobloch] and the city. "Many relatives of victims want stones in Munich. If Ms. Knobloch made a personal decision for herself, that would be OK. But to effectively forbid the project in Munich is unacceptable," chides Demnig. He consulted the Jewish community in Cologne before he started with the stones: "They told me: From a halakhic perspective, it is no problem at all, since they are not tombstones."
ISSN:0792-6049