wordy wednesday...stolpersteine {january 18, 2023}

Last weekend my brother and sister-in-law came over to the house for dinner and we reminisced about our trip we took France, Germany, and Austria in 2019. 

Before leaving for Europe, I found an article about Gunter Demnig, an artist who initiated the Stolpersteine project in 1992. He began laying 4 x 4 brass cubes to commemorate the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. These brass plaques are laid in the pavement in front of the victims' last address of choice. Stolpersteine are all over Europe, wherever the Nazis persecuted the Jews.

Gunter Demnig cites the Talmud saying that "a person is only forgotten when his or her name is forgotten. The Stolpersteine in front of the buildings bring back to memory the people who once lived there. Almost every stone begins with HERE LIVED...One "stone." One name. One person.

Holocaust memorials focus on the scale and political culpability of of this time in history; the Stolpersteine focus on its individual tragedies. Today there are over 70,000 of these memorial blocks placed in cities and towns across Europe and Russia.

Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg, Austria

Birkenfeld, Germany

Otto Pick lived in Birkenfeld. He was part of a union resistance and escaped to a monastery in Kilchzimmer, Switzerland. This stolperstein is in the town where I was born.