Protest against Stolperstein ban in Heidenau

After the decision in Heidenau near Dresden not to lay any new stumbling blocks in public spaces in the future, numerous people joined a warning. The “AKuBiz” association initiated the campaign. The Pirna-based association says it is active in democracy and remembrance work. According to him, around 200 people joined the vigil. The police initially did not provide any information about the number of participants.

"The Heidenau city council's decision not to have any more stumbling blocks laid in the city caused anger and disappointment not only among us," the association said when asked. Many expressions of outrage and offers of support were received. In addition, the reminder was intended to commemorate the people for whom stumbling blocks were planned.

At the end of September, the small town's city council majority approved a corresponding proposal from the AfD and CDU to stop laying stumbling blocks in public streets. Instead, the commemoration should preferably take place in the city's northern cemetery, so that "direct entry into the memorial elements is excluded," the decision said. The decision sparked criticism and discussions nationwide.

Stumbling blocks are not sufficient for the culture of remembrance, but they are indispensable, said the left's cultural policy spokeswoman Luise Neuhaus-Wartenberg. “It is wrong to want to push stumbling blocks and thus the victims out of everyday life or into cemeteries, especially since those responsible for the decision do not provide any compensation.”

According to the “AKuBiz” association, there are five stumbling blocks in Heidenau. The first was moved in August 2021 for the first mayor of the city, which was newly founded in 1924, Paul Gröger. Gröger therefore refused to raise the swastika flag in 1933. He was taken to the Hohnstein concentration camp and mistreated. There he took his own life.

There are stumbling blocks in many countries

The Stolpersteine form of commemoration has been around since the 1990s - and is now in many European countries. The small stones, which are usually financed by donations, are laid at the last known place of residence or work of victims of National Socialism - their names and dates of life are written on a brass plate on the top of the stones.

Remembrance signs instead of stumbling blocks in Munich

In Munich, according to a city council decision, stumbling blocks will not be laid on city property. They can be found primarily on private property - and are also permitted on properties that belong to the Free State of Bavaria. Instead, memorial signs with photos and brief life dates in front of residential buildings draw attention to the fate of the people who used to live there - before they were torn from their everyday lives by the Nazis.