Stolpersteine

These plaques are called "Stumbling Blocks" (Stolpersteine) and are located in Salzburg, Austria. During the 1990s, Gunter Demnig, from Cologne, Germany, created the "Stumbling Blocks" in order to give average Germans the ability to commemorate the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Germans buy the plaque[s] then they are engraved and installed into sidewalks, usually at the entrance where the victims once lived or worked. As you can see, the plaques contain the person's name, their birth year, the day of deportation and to where, and the place and date of where they were murdered.  Demnig's "Stumbling Blocks" spread throughout Europe. These two photos are taken personal while on my study aboard trip to Salzburg. Unless a tour guide or other individual personal points the plaques out, they are easy to simply overlooked by tourists and visitors to the city. The city of Salzburg, as well as the rest of Austria, is beautiful in all aspects - architecturally, traditional culture, and of course, its history. Yet, Austria, and Salzburg, still holds the theory that the country never supported Nazi Germany and was the victim of Nazi occupation. This is one item in which Austria needs to accept - the country was in fact willing supporters of Nazism and the Nazi occupation. Accepting this is the only way they will be able to accept and understand their role in the Holocaust. Salzburg is a fine example of this. The city's Jewish population was wiped out and it's synagogue burned. As of 2009, no memorial plaque rests in the place where the synagogue stood. The bridge in the city that was renovated by the city's Jewish population and other slave labor was not commemorated or even acknowledged until 2007. Even though not all Germans or Austrians can be blamed for the Holocaust, those who died because of it, and the Holocaust itself, can never be forgotten and ignored. As we look at the world today, massacres and genocides still occur with no world outrage.

For more information and details about Gunter Demnig and his work with "Stumbling Blocks", check out his website at:

 http://www.stolpersteine.com/DE/start.html