History of the Stolpersteinne
February 7, 2023
Guter Denmig installed the first memorial of the Stolpersteine project in Kreuzberg in 1996. He continues to manage the creation of each stone alongside craftsman Michael Freidrichs-Friedlander, who joined the project in 2005 and inscribes each stone by hand.
Unlike other Holocaust memorials, each Stolpersteine stone gives attention to an individual victim. In this way, the memorials feel more personal, as each stone includes the name, birth date, and cause of death (whether directly due to the Nazis–internment, deportation, exile, or murder–or indirectly–suicide or illness).
In addition, since the memorials are placed at the victim’s last known home, each memorial honors a person in the place they lived, instead of where they died. Furthermore, the Stolpersteinne is primarily a local project. Groups of students, neighbors, or other organizers can work together to research victims killed in the area or sponsor the creation of a memorial, since each stone costs 120 euros, about $130 USD, to design. The process involves finding and receiving permission from the victim’s family and inviting descendants to attend the installation ceremony.
The reception of the Stolpersteine has been mostly positive, but some survivors of the Holocaust and their families object to the idea that people walk on the memorials without paying attention to the victim. The approach of the Stolpersteine memorials, placing the stones on streets and sidewalks in everyday places, is viewed by some critics as disrespectful to the victim’s memories.
On the other hand, Michael Freidrichs-Friedlander believes that the Stolpersteine memorials are important now more than ever, as anti-Semitism has steadily increased over recent years. In 2021, the American Defense League reported the highest number of reported anti-Semitic incidents in the United States since the organization started recording these attacks in 1979. There were 2,717 anti-Semitic incidents in 2021, including harassment, assault, and vandalism, and anti-Semitic assaults increased by 167 percent.