The city council in Heidenau, Saxony, has approved a resolution prohibiting the installation of any further “Stolpersteine” (stumbling stones). According to a report by the newspaper “Bild”, the decision was reached during a secret ballot on Thursday, with 13 council members voting in favor of the ban, six voting against, and one abstaining. The motion was introduced by council members from the AfD, CDU, and the “Bündnis Oberelbe.”
These “Stolpersteine” are a project by artist Gunter Demnig, which has been placed across Germany and throughout Europe since the 1990s, with over 120,000 installations globally. These brass plaques, embedded in the pavement, commemorate victims of the Nazi regime, typically positioned near the last known residence of the affected individuals.
While the concept has garnered substantial praise in recent years, it has also faced pointed criticism, sometimes even from victims and their descendants. Years ago, Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor and former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, voiced opposition, stating that the people murdered during the Holocaust “deserve more than an inscription amidst weeds, street filth, and worse contamination.”
During the Heidenau city council meeting on Thursday, various motivations were evident for the council’s rejection of the project. While one local right-wing extremist remarked that “individual tragedies are sad, but all tragedies are sad,” another council member argued that the victims were being “trampled upon.” A reported statement from an AfD council member suggested that “in Berlin, people spit on the Stolpersteine.”
