The German town of Heidenau has voted to prevent any further Stolpersteine memorial stones from being installed on public streets and pavements, despite objections from the local administration and Holocaust remembrance organisations, The Jerusalem Post reports
The decision means that the distinctive brass plaques commemorating individual victims of Nazi persecution will no longer be added to public spaces in the town near Dresden.
Heidenau’s city council approved the measure in a secret ballot on Thursday, with 13 councillors supporting the proposal, six voting against it and one abstaining.
The motion was jointly submitted by representatives of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the local “Oberelbe Alliance for More Democracy”.
Stolpersteine, translated as “stumbling stones”, were created by German artist Gunter Demnig in the 1990s. The initiative has since developed into one of the world’s largest decentralised Holocaust and Nazi persecution memorial projects.
The small brass plaques are normally embedded in the pavement outside a victim’s former home or last chosen place of residence, although some are placed near workplaces or other significant locations. Each plaque records the name of an individual persecuted by the Nazi regime together with information about their fate.
The memorials commemorate Jews as well as other groups and individuals persecuted or murdered under National Socialism. Their placement in ordinary streets is intended to return the identities and personal histories of victims to the neighbourhoods in which they once lived.
Under Heidenau’s newly approved policy, future applications to place Stolpersteine in public streets and pavements will be rejected.
Supporters of the decision instead favour concentrating memorials to Nazi victims at a dedicated commemorative location in the town’s Northern Cemetery. They argue that such a location would avoid people physically walking across plaques bearing the names of those who were persecuted and murdered.
Those behind the proposal claimed that some residents, relatives of victims and memorial initiatives no longer consider Stolpersteine an appropriate way of remembering the dead for precisely this reason.
However, the decision has drawn strong criticism from organisations dedicated to Holocaust remembrance.
The International Auschwitz Committee accused the council of effectively pushing victims of Nazi persecution out of Heidenau’s town centre once again. It also expressed particular concern that CDU representatives had cooperated with the AfD in bringing forward the proposal.
March of the Living described the council’s decision as a “grave warning sign” and argued that the location of Stolpersteine is fundamental to their purpose.
“These stones confront passersby with the atrocities committed by the Germans – the Nazis – at the very sites where they occurred; blocking their installation sacrifices historical truth for the sake of political interests,” the organisation said.
It went further, describing the decision as “a grave injustice – an act of erasure that compounds the crime of extermination.”
March of the Living called on the Heidenau authorities to reverse the measure.
The council approved the restriction despite opposition from Heidenau’s own municipal administration. Officials had recommended that councillors reject the proposal, arguing that remembrance of Nazi persecution should remain “visible and present in public space”.
Five Stolpersteine have already been installed in Heidenau and will remain in place. Local activists have sought in recent years to add further plaques commemorating other victims connected with the town.
Organisers submitted a request to the municipality as early as February 2025 and offered to cover the costs of producing and installing the additional memorial stones themselves.
Heidenau is not the only German municipality where Stolpersteine have faced opposition. Munich does not permit the plaques to be installed on public property, although the reasoning there has notably included objections from within the Jewish community itself.
Charlotte Knobloch, Holocaust survivor and president of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, has long opposed placing Stolpersteine on pavements. She has argued that the names of people murdered by the Nazis should not be positioned on the ground where pedestrians can walk over them.
The debate in Heidenau therefore reflects a genuine disagreement over the most respectful form of Holocaust remembrance. However, critics of the council’s decision have focused particularly on removing individual memorials from the everyday public spaces where victims once lived, as well as the political circumstances surrounding the motion and the cooperation between CDU and AfD representatives.
Photo credit: Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
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