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Stolperstein
- voz_ 4y agoInsanely important, especially with the renewed rise of antisemitism - sad to see this downvoted.
- bowsamic 4y agoIt hasn't even been 100 years and already it is relatively easy to find people who are genuinely and openly sympathetic to the Nazis
- suction 4y agoAnd ironically this is becoming more common in those countries who pride themselves of eradicating Naziism in WW2.
- DonHopkins 4y agoEven people who continue to stand by their racist statement that there are "very fine people on both sides", and continue to have the fanatical support of the majority of the Republican party.
- baybal2 4y ago[dead]
- xyzal 4y ago
- rob74 4y agoGood question, but what does that have to do with the topic at hand (the Holocaust and commemorating its victims), except maybe whataboutism?
- bushbaba 4y agoYou’re deviating from the thread topic and encouraging a flame war. Suggest everyone leave this be and focus on the article itself.
- nix23 4y agoNo why? Most non-orthodox-jews and some orthodox-jews despise what Israel is doing.
- petesergeant 4y agoIt depends on what you say, according to the IHRA: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” are both examples of anti-semitism according to this definition
- voz_ 4y ago
- cs137 4y agoNo. In fact, most Jews I know are intensely critical of Israel's policies and recent actions. Unfortunately, there is a degree to which antisemitism is disguised behind disproportionate criticism of Israel and the Israeli people, and it's impossible to know, at an individual level, why people hold their opinions. Does Israel's government do awful things for questionable reasons (like most, if not all, national governments)? Yes. Is Israel the worst government in the Middle East? Far from it. To be honest, it's probably the least repressive, racist, or otherwise obnoxious government in the region (that's not setting a high bar). Israeli Arabs (especially women) have more freedoms in Israel than they would in any of the neighboring countries. Should Israel do better? Of course. It's absurd, though, that there's such a strong interest in BDS while the continuing consumption of Saudi oil goes unquestioned by most. Also: why is it that the behavior of Israel's government comes up in a discussion about memorializing people who were murdered before the state of Israel even existed? I have Irish (American) ancestry, but no one has ever asked me to answer for the Irish government (or connected me to it in any way, seeing as my Irish ancestors came over in the early 19th century). It's deeply weird that some people are so quick to connect anything having to do with Jews or Judaism with the conduct of one government in particular, which is thousands of miles away from where many Jews live.
- edanm 4y agoAgree with most of your post, but did want to point out one thing: >[...] most Jews I know are intensely critical of Israel's policies and recent actions. While that certainly might be true wherever you live, note that the majority of the world's Jewish population lives in Israel, and at least some fairly large portion of that population does support Israel's policies and recent actions. (I assume we're talking about the same things here, i.e. actions with regards to Palestinians, as opposed to all the other stuff happening in the country.)
- cs137 4y agoThe plurality of the Jewish population is believed to be in the US (there are some issues around estimation) although it's close. As for Israelis and support for their government, that is... complicated. Unfortunately, if the Israeli state didn't exist, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Jewish people in the region would likely be murdered by people from neighboring countries. This isn't because Arabs are "innately" warlike or antisemitic (I don't think that's true) but because the states in the region are deeply corrupt, failing states that will (as Russia has done) create an external enemy and launch a war to distract their own people from domestic issues. The Israeli state is deeply problematic, corrupted by capitalism and some amount of racism (as almost all Western states are). It also has a job that is tough as hell: protecting a vulnerable minority group from millions who would murder them. The middle-of-the-road Israeli understands the need to protect themselves, but isn't a huge fan of the settlements (if he thinks about them at all) and certainly would love to see peace in the region.
- smcl 4y agoIt's top of the HN front page, it's not getting downvoted. In fact you can’t downvote a submission.
- ad_hominem 4y ago
- blueflow 4y agoNobody is like, "Oh no! This baddie i just killed could be a Stolperstein in the future". Remembrance is one thing, self-reflection is another. People will genocide their enemies and be like, "Thank god we aren't like the Nazis", or worse, "Trust us the guy we just killed was a Nazi". None of this helps with moral reasoning.
- uniqueuid 4y agoIt's an awesome idea, because it brings the painful past right into our daily lives. You're forced to serendipituously "stumble" across them every now and then. The stories on them, told in a brief phrase, are mostly heartbreaking, sometimes uplifting, always relevant. "Executed for making fun of the Führer", "Deported and gassed for hiding Jewish neighbors", "Survived concentration camp but parents, siblings and relatives did not make it out alive".
- lyian 4y agoYeah, in my city I also stumble across these stones. One day, on my way of getting groceries, I was quite frankly shocked by the frequency of the stolpersteine. I am thankful that these exists and getting reminded now and then is, at least for me, really important and outline in some kind of tiny fraction, how many families suffered the same fate.
- hnhg 4y agoI've seen some that just name a family or couple that were taken away one night and "murdered", which hit me the hardest, personally.
- Klaster_1 4y agoThe idea to put a bit more info about the person was brilliant, even a single sentence makes you relate more. There is a similar project in Russia called The Last Address [1], I see these a lot (but probably not enough) in the Saint-Petersburg historical center, and although being a similar age and area of expertise to lots of victims helps, even a brief summary of their "wrongdoings" would go a long way enriching the perspective on our history, especially given current political climate here. "A 30 years old engineer lived here" doesn't ring as close as "a 30 years old engineer who lived here was murdered by the state for a crime of opposing the oppressive regime". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Address https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Address
- tpoacher 4y agoI always thought that a firstperson shooter game where whenever you killed a mook you'd get a quick flashback of that person's life would have been a super interesting concept. Especially if it was a Call of Duty like game, rather than a game where you could choose to avoid killing.
- guerda 4y agoThere's also a OpenStreetMap based map on top of that: https://stolpersteinmap.de/ https://stolpersteinmap.de/ And the German public TV station created an app with additional information on Stolpersteine: https://stolpersteine.wdr.de/web/en/ https://stolpersteine.wdr.de/web/en/
- M4tze 4y agoImpressive to see how many Stolpersteine are out there. I never saw/recognized one on my own even though I walk around a lot in areas with a high density of them.
- sdoering 4y agoI didn't know of them until after I had moved to Hamburg, where there are quite a few. My SO showed them to me and told me the background. I was flabbergasted. Being very interested in history, having studied history at university and never before having heard of them was quite frankly disconcerting for me back then. Since I nearly always stumble (as intended) as it is a visual pattern I now instantly recognize.
- matsemann 4y agoI think it's almost like Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. When I randomly recognized the first one, I suddenly realized there were many more I would pass everyday but had never noticed.
- Tepix 4y agoThe map is missing some even though they are listed on Wikipedia...
- atoav 4y agoMany central european cities are full of these Stolpersteine and it is sometimes quite interesting where people lived that have been taken away — and what took their place decades later. Typically people who live there, children from nearby schools or community projects look to keep them clean and polished, although depending on how remote that area is you might also "stolper" over some that haven't got the treatment for a while. I think there is a real benefit to these small, decentralized "micromonuments", as they remind you of actual history in the many places where it happened. The genocidal horror of the nazis did not happen in some megalomaniac central spot after all, it was in every neighbourhood.
- gpjanik 4y agoIt's weird that the article explicitly mentiones various groups that were killed/deported to German concentration camps across Europe and commemorated by the stones, but does not mention the second largest one - Poles. German historical policy tends to not include Poles as victims the 1939-1945 Germany, but in spite of that, there are multiple stones commemorating them in today's Berlin.
- tokai 4y agoApparently putting down the stones in Poland is met with resistance. If poles want to commemorate killed poles with these stones they will have to take the initiative.
- kybernetyk 4y agoIn Germany there has been a lot of resistance too. Including court cases etc.
- durnygbur 4y agoIt's their way of commemorating their victims and somehow in the process the second largest group slipped through. I don't want their way of commemorating their victims in my home Poland.
- kybernetyk 4y ago
- sprash 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- DocTomoe 4y ago
- sdoering 4y agoWow. Taking a fringe opinion even within the German/international Jewish community and posting as if this was the majority opinion is interesting at least. Please don't make it into a flame war. Because I strongly believe this is a topic that needs to be discussed. Esp. given the background in Germany with gravestones as plaster. But also it needs to be acknowledged that the project does absolutely not intend a "mit Füßen treten" ("to trample upon") mentality towards history, memory or Jews. It is totally valid and important to discuss if the benefits outweigh the feeling of some that it might enable people to "trample upon the Jewish names". I personally tend to lean towards the benefits. But I can totally understand people on the other side of the fence. Implying that this is a majority opinion on the other hand is imho definitely not the right way to go about it.
- DocTomoe 4y agoIn the spirit of beneficial discussion: Nowhere I implied that that was a majority opinion with Jews. It was - however - a popular opinion of influential members of Jewish organisations within Munich, back when the ban was originally enacted.
- suction 4y agoThey are called "tripping cobbles", but they are actually flush with the rest of the cobbles - everything else would be a huge hazard for people not watching where they walk. So I don't think the "grave insult" applies here, or else why would the Stolpersteine have been inserted into the middle of the boardwalk of streets with lots of pedestrian traffic? If you're in a hurry and don't look down, you will not even know they are there. And if you read the artistic statement, that's exactly what they are meant to be - a part of daily life, not a sculpture to stand in front of and study. Of course, if someone wanted to insult the dead, they could make a show of repeatedly stepping on them. I don't think it would provoke much of a reaction other than people thinking "what a pitiful loser".
- KingOfCoders 4y agoFrom my experience best cleaned with Elsterglanz Messing.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jd115 4y ago
- jd115 4y ago
- waffleiron 4y ago> Will be very hard to walk in russia. That's not how these work, they are places at the home where the victim lived. Second, you are starting a flame war and being very off-topic.
- jd115 4y agoThey work how we want them to work. And nothing could be more on-topic than this right now. What the fuck is the point of remembering and saying "never again" if not to stop what is happening right now in front of our eyes? Second, there can be no flame wars about this. Everyone agrees on the above.
- trhway 4y agoFor many victims we'd not even know - for example about 50000 civilians have been killed by Russian forces in Mariupol and many bodies are inside the ruined buildings which Russia is just demolishing right now without taking the bodies out. A lot of people on occupied territories - government/municipal officials, former military, journalists, activists, etc. - have already been kidnapped by the Russian SS force ("Russian Guard") and nobody knows and may never know the fate of the many of them. About million of people have been moved into Russia - they are moved through "filtration camps" where those who deemed "nationalist" (anti-Russian posts in FB/Twitter for example or having family members who have fought on Ukrainian side) are filtered out and again fate unknown. The fate of the rest is officially some resettlement in Russia though there is no way to account for all of them. Also a note about the Putin regime actions to erase the memory of the millions of victims of another mass killing - during recent years Russia de-facto outlawed (assigned impossible to exist with status of "foreign agent" which led to the organization closing) to the "Memorial" organization the main work of which was maintaining the public memory of the victims of the Stalin repressions.
- isolli 4y agoRelated, I recommend following the account of the Auschwitz memorial: https://twitter.com/AuschwitzMuseum https://twitter.com/AuschwitzMuseum Every day, they post pictures of a handful people who were detained (and almost always died) in the concentration camp, and seeing those in my feed is the virtual equivalent of Stolpersteine. It's also sobering to think that, at the pace at which they post, it would take thousands of years to commemorate all the victims.
- timvisee 4y agoGreat to see recognition for this on HN! My mother set up a group buy here in the neighborhood to place four of these Stolpersteine, and arranged everything needed to make it happen.
- riccardomc 4y agoThey are everywhere in Amsterdam. Here's a map on the non-profit website that takes care of them: https://stichting-stolpersteine.nl/where-are-stolpersteine/?lang=en https://stichting-stolpersteine.nl/where-are-stolpersteine/?...
- VSerge 4y agoThere are many such memorial plaques on the pavements of Vienna. They are almost part of the landscape, easy to walk by without noticing, yet every so often, when one stops rushing and reads a few of these (it was often whole families being deported, not just individuals), it hits again. And it is important that it never stops hitting and reminding us of this horror and of the need of avoiding repeating it.
- curiousgal 4y ago> the need of avoiding repeating it Which is why I think this is pointless. We didn't learn anything. People are still being prosecuted all throughout the world. I won't give examples because I don't mean to start a flamewar but yeah, humanity sucks.
- shakezula 4y agoIt’s absolutely not pointless. We learned, but learning is not a destination, it’s a journey that sometimes has backtracks and delays. The fact that you think it’s pointless shows that you yourself have some learning to do.
- curiousgal 4y agoReferring to modern day regimes commiting genocide as "backtracks" is quite something. Learning is pointless if you don't put it to use, which is what my point is. It doesn't take decades to learn not to kill people who are different from you.
- Freak_NL 4y agoI'll preface this by stating that this is probably not a popular opinion. Notwithstanding the ideals behind the Stolpersteine, they are not exclusively a positive influence. The problem lies in one of the defining characteristics of this project: the stones are placed in front of the houses where the Jewish victims who got deported and executed lived. This means that if you happen to live in a house tenanted by these unfortuna victims in the past (or even in a new house built where their house was), you can end up with a whole bunch of names permanently staring at you whenever you leave the house. Some, perhaps most, people can ignore that, but for some this constant reminder of pointless death and hardship is quite a burden and can significantly affect their quality of life — should they feel guilty for living? If you speak up about this, you are branded a clueless NIMBY resident or even an anti-Semite (there have been a few of such cases in the Netherlands). Normally, memorials and remembrances are limited in their influence on people's daily life. Memorials are not just placed haphazardly, but with proper consideration of the needs and wants of those who life in the area, as well as the victims and their descendants. A respectful, serene corner of a public park for example. Events where the victims of past conflicts are remembered are limited in time: you can participate or ignore it, and then move on with your life. Stolpersteine however, just get put there in the pavement whether you like it or not. Should people be confronted with the horrors of past conflicts? Absolutely — during education and in locations where this is to be expected and one can open up to consider the actions and consequences of the past — but not everywhere, not constantly, and not exclusively (there are, after all, quite a few horrific things in our recent past, certainly not limited to the fate of deported Jews in the Second World War). Unavoidable, the dead commemorated by Stolpersteine stake out quite a claim on the land of the living. I do find that Stolpersteine presume too much upon the public space to the point of becoming tasteless and an affront.
- robert_foss 4y agoI'm not sure why being reminded of the horrors of the past would make you feel guilty.
- hans1729 4y ago"Why does confrontation with horror make you feel uneasy?" ...
- southerntofu 4y agoSo there was a borderline-neonazi comment i wanted to reply to, but it got flagged in the meantime. It argued that there was an international jewish-communist conspiracy in pre-WWII Germany, and that WWII served to establish the UN as a means to demolish national sovereignty, and that Israel is an ethnonationalist State. In case this person is still around reading, or someone else believes such things, here was my answer i couldn't post under the now-deleted comment: Wow, i was not expecting to find a neonazi comment here on HN. To be clear, i agree with your criticism of Israel as ethnonationalist and despite immense propaganda efforts it's becoming harder and harder for Israel proponents to pretend otherwise. (And for the record, a lot of Israelis also make that point and struggle every day against their whole racist/colonial machine) However, the threat of "jewish communism" (judeo-bolshevism as they called it back then) is a spectre invented by nazis and fueled by more ancient conspiracy theories such as the protocol of the elders of zion (spread by Russian political police in early 20th century). Just like today, at least here in France, the neo-nazis and other fascists and warning of the threat of "islamo-leftism", and inventing debilitating theories about "reverse racism" and "reverse colonization" and "white genocide". As for "world government" and the destruction of national sovereignty, two things: 1. International agreements such as the UN have on the contrary formalized the concept of national sovereignty and non-intervention 2. Of course those principles are never respected and the big empires will do whatever is in their interests: this was already the case long before the UN with the League of Nations, and even long before that, such as when the Berlin conference (19th century) formally divided Africa into territories to be ruled by the colonial empires. The reason there are straight borders on African maps is because some european aristocrats who knew nothing about these territories sat around a table with a ruler and traced lines. To be clear, your thoughts are not illegal, but they are very wrong. I encourage you to get a better understanding of history from different sources, and maybe realize that Israel is not much more than any other colonial empire of today. In fact, many of their repression/counter-insurgency techniques are straight out of French doctrine established during the Algerian war of independence. So why are some people desperately focusing on Israel as the driving force of evil around the world? From some arab/muslim community, i understand they can relate to the victims of Israeli colonialism... but from white westerners (no idea if that's your case), it certainly plays into the old antisemite trope of an imaginary international jewish alliance trying to control the planet.
- mikewarot 4y agoThere are so many places here in the USA we could do something similar to this, but it would be politicized to death in microseconds.
- rainworld 4y ago
- kappuchino 4y agoQuestion: Would you be so kind an elaborate what you mean by your comment regarding the Stolpersteine that his thread is about? I personally find your comment ambigous at best and berating at worst. But what do I know.
- shark1 4y agoThis made me think: "Unlike many other German cities, the city council of Munich in 2004 rejected the installation of Stolpersteine on public property, following objections raised by Munich's Jewish community... She objected to the idea that the names of murdered Jews be inserted in the pavement, where people might accidentally step on them. In other cities, permission for the project was preceded by long, sometimes emotional discussions. In Krefeld, the vice-chairman of the Jewish community, Michael Gilad, said that Demnig's memorials reminded him of how the Nazis had used Jewish gravestones as slabs for sidewalks. Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) has expressed reservations towards to project, noting that the form of the memorial, particularly its location on regular sidewalks, which are regularly stomped over by passersby, is not respectful. Another criticism from IPN has concerned inadequate level of detail provided on Stolpersteine, such as lack of context clarifying that most of the perpetrators of the Holocaust were Germans, and not Poles. IPN officials have repeatedly suggested that instead of Stolpersteine, the more respectful, informative and traditional form of remembrance that the IPN is willing to support."
- WaitWaitWha 4y agoSidewalks are also very dirty (spit, dogs, trash, etc.) I think this would have been better by mounting them on the walls. Many cultures consider stepping on someone's name, burial, or memorial horribly disrespectful.
- ascar 4y agoAs a German I think it's weird the article starts with "A Stolperstein is..." and then directly refers to the art project of Gunter Demning. That's not what "a" Stolperstein is. It's a common phrase in German about a stone that makes you stumble on an otherwise even/walkable road/pathway. It's also used in the metaphorical sense, if something makes you stumble/fall on your metaphorical way of life. No German would think of the word Stolperstein and the art project as synonyms. In fact I hadn't heard about it until today. The German wikipedia introduction is clearer on that and starts with "The Stolpersteine are a project of artist Gunter Demning" and I think the English wikipedia should be adjusted accordingly.
- dtnewman 4y agoFair criticism. You should edit it!
- OJFord 4y agoI think the second paragraph should just be the first. (Or perhaps somehow keeping the pronunciation guide etc. in the first for prominence, since that's the usual Wikipedia style.)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ratww 4y agoOne popular solution for that is having a {{See Wiktionary}} tag on the top of the article that adds the text 'For a definition of the term "Stolperstein", see the Wiktionary entry Stolperstein.'
- dandare 4y agoSlightly related: Communists cut Jewish gravestones to cobbles and used it to pave Prague historic center. The stones were discovered during a revamp of the pavement and are now returned to Jewish cemetery. https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-46845131 https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-46845131
- MikeDelta 4y agoI remember looking at a group of four a while ago and noticed the next day that someone had polished the copper and put flowers around it. Very touching.
- puskavi 4y agoPriviledged victims. I dont think any other ethnic cleansing can ever come close to this amount of "remembering"
- MandieD 4y agoHaving spent most of my adult life in Germany, I’ve seen hundreds of them, and I try to take a moment to think of the people they name. And then reflect that Germans don’t have some special intrinsic evil that made them capable of doing this 80 years ago - every country is some hard times and a demagogue away from it.