Memorial Stolpersteins, set into the Pavements of European Cities.

A "Stolperstein" (stumbling stone) inserted into the pavement near St Andrew´s Church in Braunschweig.

 These small plaques are set into the pavement outside the former home of a Jewish family with two children.    The parents managed to escaped to Britain in the 1928, the children arrived in the UK with the "Kindertransport."

 A Stolperstein meaning literally a  "stumbling stone," is a type of monument created by artist Gunter Demnig,  to commemorate victims of Nazi oppression, including the Holocaust. Stolpersteins are small, cobblestone-sized memorials for individual victims of Nazism – both those who died and survivors – who were consigned by the Nazis to prisons, euthanasia facilities, sterilization clinics, concentration camps and extermination camps, as well as those who responded to persecution by emigrating or committing suicide.

While the vast majority of Stolpersteins commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust, others have been placed for Sinti and Romani people,  (also called gypsies), homosexuals, Jehovah´s Witnesses, black people, Christians (both Protestants and Catholics) opposed to the Nazis, and members of the Communist Party and the anti-Nazi Resistance, military deserters, and the physically and mentally disabled. 

The number of cities that have Stolpersteins now extends to several countries and hundreds of cities and towns. As of 11 January 2015^[update], over 50,000 Stolpersteins have been laid in 18 countries in Europe, making the project the world's largest decentralized memorial.

A Stolperstein in Bonn,  a memorial to Ida Arensberg, "Here lived Ida Arensberg, nee Benjamin, 1870 - deported 1942, murdered in Theresienstadt on 8th September 1942"

The Origin of the name.

Before the Holocaust, it was the custom in Germany for non-Jews to say, derisively, on stumbling over a protruding stone, "There must be a Jew buried here."^[ Jewish cemeteries were destroyed throughout Nazi Germany, and gravestones were re-used as building material, to pave sidewalks, with the intention of desecrating the memory of the dead. In a metaphorical sense, the German term Stolperstein can mean "potential problem".

 Gunter Demnig setting three Stolpersteins into the cobbled pavement.

 

Donations from individuals and peace groups supports his work, for which he has received many accolades.