If you didn’t know any better, you could walk all over one of Germany’s most poignant contemporary art projects without even realizing it. On sidewalks throughout the country, gleaming brass markers called Stolpersteine (“Stumbling Blocks”) memorialize the places where Holocaust victims last lived. An ongoing project by Cologne-based artist Gunter Demnig, it’s one of the most moving memorials of the Holocaust.

Since 1995, Demnig has been fashioning by hand the 10 X 10 centimeter (4 X 4 inch) blocks, each one of which represents a Holocaust victim, whether they were Jewish, homosexual, Jehovah’s Witness, Roma Gypsy, or a resistance fighter.

“Here lived,” begins the engraved text, followed by the name of the victim and brief information about their life, usually their birth year, when they were deported, and when, where, and sometimes how they died. The €95 cost of each stone is footed, for the most part, by victims’ families and private donations, and information for the markers is gleaned from a variety of archive sources.

Once each block is finished, Demnig personally hammers it into the sidewalk in front of the building that the victim once called home. In cases when the apartments or houses no longer exist, the Stolperstein is imbedded where the building once stood.

The project hasn’t been without controversy. Munich is the only major city to ban the markers, arguing that they could spark anti-Semitic action. In some cases, homeowners have tried to block the installation of Stolpersteine in front of their buildings, and some of the brass markers have been ripped out.

Still, the project continues to expand and reach new milestones. As of late 2007, there were well over 12,000 stones in 30 locations in Germany, plus some in Austria, Hungary and the Netherlands. In late 2007, the first memorial to commemorate a black Holocaust victim was unveiled in Berlin’s Mitte district. In 1941, African-born Mahjub bin Adam Mohamed was arrested by the Nazis and accused of miscegenation. He died in 1944 in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, which is located just outside of Berlin in Oranienburg.

For more information on Demnig, who recently released a documentary about his project, visit www.stolpersteine.com. (in German)

Article by: Hilda Hoy, a Berlin-based freelance journalist.

Photo by: Williamaveryhudson