Remembrance campaign Stumbling-Stones

A Person is only forgotten, if his or her name is forgotten.
Gunter Demnig

To make history understandable it is and will be important to have the possibility to retrace her on concrete and sensuous references. This is even more valid for the crimes of the Nazi-Regime, being kept away for many decades out of the memory of the German people, either by conscious suppressing or by unconscious forgetting. Through the Stumbling-Stones campaign It has become possible to seek out the suffering ways of the pursued humans in the direct neighbourhood and energize an automatic memory und memorial work, especially by the younger generation.

Pupils of the Auguste-Viktoria Gymnasiums after the laying from 30.10..2006

What are Stumbling-Stones ?

Stumbling-Stones are 10 cm² big concrete paving-stones with a golden inscription. They are lain concisely in the pubic pavements. Although they are not any obstacle, they are called Stumbling-Stones, because anybody who sees one stops und gets stumbling in thoughts by reading the words. "Here lived" is the heading. Underneath there is a name, a date of birth and a date of death. The corners of a vita, which end was caused by brutal violence, proofed by the words "departed" and "killed", "taken to custody", "executed" or died by the results of the arrest.

The victims of the national-socialism are taken back to the ordinary reality by the Stumbling-Stones, where they used to live in peace. With the name of a kidnapped victim a seizable piece of memory  comes back to the common mind of those who may have wanted to forget the destiny - by shame or by sense of guilt. Every departed was a neighbour, having drunk a beer with in the Pub next door, having met at the bakery in the morning or whose children have played with the own ones or the ones of their grand-parents. By calling back the names of the victims to the memory field of the neighbourhood, the Stumbling-Stones arrange more questions about the individual destiny und ways-of-life. Who were those people, whose names and dates are on the stones, the Jews, the Communists, the Sinti, the Roma, the Gays und the engaged christs ? In which paths did their life run before it was endet by the national-socialists ?

Gunter Demnig during the laying on October, 30 2006 in the Wechselstraße in Trier

The idea for the special memorial-campaign originates from the cologne artist Gunter Demnig. In spring 2005 the Stumbling-Stones arrived in Trier. Every Stone is handmade and laid by Gunter Demnig and 95 Euro. Before laying a Stone, the dates of the victim are investigated by the Stumbling-Stones initiatives of the town. One condition for laying the stones is the the municipality agree to the project. With laying the Stones, they move into the property of the town as a donation.

The project-creator Gunter Demnig

Gunter Demnig was born in 1947 in Berlin. Since 1985 he works as a free artist in Cologne. As a scultor and action artist he was concerned by the problem of representing broken-off development processes, being lost in common consciousness. He got the surname "Spurenleger" ( trace-layer) because he showed the beginning and final-points of exemplarily broken-off development processes with large-scale lines in his actions. In 1990 he marked the way the 1000 Sinti and Roma had to go during their deportation to the Extermination Camp in 1940 with a colour-printing-machine. That was the birth of the Stumbling-Stones. In 1993 he began to lay the first Stones in Cologne. Since then Gunter Demnig has layn nearly 10000 Stumbling-Stones in nearly 200 municipalities.

Please have a look at  www.stolpersteine.com and Gunter Demnig.

The technical sequence of a Stumbling-Stone laying

For the laying of a Stone, Gunter Demnig needs about 20 minutes. Our illustrating pictures were taken at the laying at October, 30 2006 in Trier, Paulinstraße.

please click here to view the pictures

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