Stolperstein

A Stolperstein is a ten-centimetre (3.9 in) concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. Literally, it means ‘stumbling stone’ and metaphorically ‘stumbling block’. (pronounced [ˈʃtɔlpɐˌʃtaɪn] (listen); plural Stolpersteine)

The Stolpersteine project, initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, aims to commemorate individuals at exactly the last place of residency – or, sometimes, work – which was freely chosen by the person before they fell victim to Nazi terror, forced euthanasia, eugenics, deportation to a concentration or extermination camp, or escaped persecution by emigration or suicide. As of December 2019, 75,000^[1]Stolpersteine have been laid, making the Stolpersteine project the world’s largest decentralized memorial.^[2][3]

The majority of Stolpersteine commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust.^[4] Others have been placed for Sinti and Romani people (then also called “gypsies”), Poles, homosexuals, the physically or mentally disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, black people, members of the Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the anti-Nazi Resistance, the Christian opposition (both Protestants and Catholics), and Freemasons, along with International Brigade soldiers in the Spanish Civil War, military deserters, conscientious objectors, escape helpers, capitulators, “habitual criminals”, looters, and others charged with treason, military disobedience, or undermining the Nazi military, as well as Allied soldiers.

Origin of the name

The name of the Stolpersteine project invokes multiple allusions. In Nazi Germany, an antisemitic saying, when accidentally stumbling over a protruding stone, was: “A Jew must be buried here”.^[5][6] In a metaphorical sense, the German term Stolperstein can mean “potential problem”.^[7] The term “to stumble across something”, in German and English, can also mean “to find out (by chance)”.^[8] Thus, the term provocatively invokes an antisemitic remark of the past, but at the same time intends to provoke thoughts about a serious issue. Stolpersteine are not placed prominently, but are rather discovered by chance, only recognizable when passing by at close distance. In contrast to central memorial places, which according to Demnig can be easily avoided or bypassed, Stolpersteine represent a much deeper intrusion of memory into everyday life.