Stolpersteine
In front of Pfungstadt's synagogue you "stumble over" brass stones embedded in the pavement. These are two of several Stolpersteine (literally "stumbling stones", metaphorically "stumbling blocks") in the town and two of the 70.000 that can be found all over Europe. The Stolpersteine project has become the world's largest decentralized memorial since the project was initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992. It commemorates victims of the Holocaust at their very last place of residence before deportation. The sad list of these victims is long, Jews, homosexuals, Sinti and Romani people, physically or mentally disabled, political opponents, Christian opposition, to name a few.
The Stolpersteine are all alike: a concrete stone covered by a brass plate with the victims's names and life dates inscribed.
The allusions and connotations of the "stumbling stones"are intriguingly multifold.
All inscriptions, which give the victims back their identy after being reduced to numbers in detentions camps, are done by hand to contrast Nazi extermination machinery.
As to the name, Stolperstein in German means "a potential problem" whereas "to stumble across something" can also mean "to find out by chance".
They also evoke an appalling Nazi saying, used when accidentially stumbling over a protruding cobblestone, " A Jew must be buried here", and turn it into an admonitory reminder.
The project has not been received universally approvingly. A common objection was that after being humilated, degraded and killed by Nazis, they are now stepped on by pedestrians.
Others, in turn, point out that you need to bow down to read the inscriptions, which is a gesture of respect and reverence.
For sure, the Stoplersteine make vividly clear that all the people who fell vivtim to Nazi terror used to live among those who looked away, ignored or even denied their fate and thus contributed to the atrocities. They prove the often heard excuse of eyewitnesses of that time, they had not noticed anything of what was going on, to be a lie.
All inscriptions, which give the victims back their identy after being reduced to numbers in detentions camps, are done by hand to contrast Nazi extermination machinery.
As to the name, Stolperstein in German means "a potential problem" whereas "to stumble across something" can also mean "to find out by chance".
They also evoke an appalling Nazi saying, used when accidentially stumbling over a protruding cobblestone, " A Jew must be buried here", and turn it into an admonitory reminder.
The project has not been received universally approvingly. A common objection was that after being humilated, degraded and killed by Nazis, they are now stepped on by pedestrians.
Others, in turn, point out that you need to bow down to read the inscriptions, which is a gesture of respect and reverence.
For sure, the Stoplersteine make vividly clear that all the people who fell vivtim to Nazi terror used to live among those who looked away, ignored or even denied their fate and thus contributed to the atrocities. They prove the often heard excuse of eyewitnesses of that time, they had not noticed anything of what was going on, to be a lie.
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