The grassroots Holocaust memorial project that has placed ‘Stolpersteine,’ or ‘stumbling blocks’ commemorating victims of Nazi oppression at their last homes, has laid its 100,000th plaque.
Gunter Demnig, the German sculptor who started the initiative thirty years ago was on hand in Nuremberg to install the brass plaque in a sidewalk. The small plaques are engraved with the name of a victim, birthdate, date of deportation or escape and, if known, date and place of death.
The small memorials, meant both to remind passers-by of what happened and, following Jewish tradition, to keep alive the memory of the dead, have spread to 20 countries in Europe.
Deming told press “My 100,000 stones are only so many. But maybe someday there will be 200,000. “It will always remain a symbol. But I think this symbol is very important.” Also on hand for the ceremony was U.S. Ambassador Amy Gutmann, whose grandfather was among those forced to flee Germany.
