A wave of sharp criticism is sweeping Germany today (Saturday) after the town of Heidenau in Saxony voted to ban the placement of “stumbling stones” (Stolpersteine)—small brass memorial plaques embedded in sidewalks to commemorate Nazi victims. The decision passed in the town council with votes from the conservative Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, along with members of the CDU party.
1+The proposal submitted to the council stated that “many citizens feel this form of commemoration for Nazi victims is inappropriate.” Under the decision, the memorial stones will be moved to the town’s Nordfriedhof cemetery “to prevent direct stepping on the memorial elements.”
German Education Minister Karin Prien, a CDU member, sharply criticized the decision. “Anyone who banishes the stumbling stones and memorial sites for Jewish life from public space to the cemetery prefers death over life and makes the Jewish people invisible again,” Prien told the newspaper Bild, placing responsibility on her own party in Saxony as well.
1+Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor and president of the Jewish community in Munich, said removing monuments from the city landscape is “a completely wrong approach.” She expressed shock that “a democratic party would support such a transparent maneuver by AfD extremists.” Gunter Demnig, the artist who initiated the stumbling stones project, noted that “given the AfD’s recent electoral successes, it was to be expected that something like this would happen.”