Heidenau Halts Future Stolpersteine Installations

Heidenau’s council has voted to stop future installations of Stolpersteine, brass plaques commemorating victims of Nazi persecution, and to direct future memorial events to a site at the town’s northern cemetery. The decision, approved on Thursday, September 24, has drawn criticism from Jewish community figures, politicians and the artist behind the memorial project. The motion was proposed or backed by local councillors from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Supporters argued that the plaques, set into pavement, were inappropriate because pedestrians could walk over the names of victims. The motion proposed concentrating future Holocaust commemorations at the cemetery rather than placing new plaques in public streets. The Stolpersteine, or “stumbling stones,” are small brass plaques installed outside former homes and workplaces of Jews and other people persecuted by the Nazis. Initiated by German artist Gunter Demnig in the 1990s, they mark individual victims and are intended to bring remembrance into everyday public spaces. More than 116,000 have been installed in 31 countries, according to reports cited in coverage of the decision.