Vandalism of Gunter Demnig's Stolpersteine in Rome and Europe

Twenty Stolpersteine by German artist Gunter Demnig were torn from the ground in Rome on December 9. Similar acts occurred in Halle, Germany, a decade ago, and Munich's administration has banned their installation. For over twenty years, Demnig has placed these 'stumbling stones' across European cities to mark sites of Nazi atrocities. The stones—concrete cubes with brass plates engraved with names, birth and death dates of deportees—line sidewalks, indicating homes of Jews, Sinti, and Roma, preceded by the phrase 'here lived.' They restore names to those who were mere numbers in Nazi camps. The article argues that vandals are emboldened by a rising racist climate, where historical proof is rendered invisible and debatable. It reflects on the impossibility of teaching memory, only bearing witness, quoting Jean Améry and Tadeusz Borowski. The stones function as a pedestrian rhetoric, embodying memory through potential trampling. Exposed to racism and antisemitism, they suggest that sites of horror advance step by step toward total elimination. Demnig's work may remain unfinished until the six-millionth stone is laid, or continue timelessly, testifying to all deliberately starved, tortured, and murdered beings.