Gunter Demnig no longer remembers exactly how he came up with the name. What is certain is that he had decided on the name when he still assumed that laying the stones would be a one-time art action. He liked the double meaning of the name because he wanted to cause a mental stumbling with the stones.
Meanwhile, Gunter Demnig likes to quote a student who, when asked by a journalist at an installation if one wouldn't fall over the stones, replied: "You don't fall over the STOLPERSTEINE, you stumble with your head and heart."
Gunter Demnig is concerned with individual remembrance. The Nazis wanted to destroy people, turn them into numbers, and erase even the memory of them. Gunter Demnig wants to reverse this process and bring the names back to our cities, to where people once had their center of life. In this context, Gunter Demnig likes to quote a passage from the Talmud, which says: "A person is only forgotten when their name is no longer remembered."
For places where the number of victims exceeds the spatial conditions or our imagination, Gunter Demnig developed the concept of the STOLPERSCHWELLE (stumbling threshold). On a STOLPERSCHWELLE, what happened at this place can be documented in a few lines. The threshold is based on the dimensions of the STOLPERSTEINE (width 96mm) but can be extended up to one meter.
Yes, anyone can have a STOLPERSTEIN installed. STOLPERSTEINE work on the principle of a grassroots movement. This means that any interested person can participate. The impulse for a Stolperstein always comes from outside, from initiatives, local and historical associations, schools, and many others.
If you would like to have a STOLPERSTEIN installed, contact the STOLPERSTEIN initiators in your city. If this is the first installation in your city, you would need to obtain the necessary permissions. You can find more information about this in our steps for STOLPERSTEIN installation
The artist Gunter Demnig is behind the Stolpersteine. He had the idea for this art memorial and has been installing many STOLPERSTEINE himself since 1993. To ensure that the project will continue for many years to come, Gunter Demnig founded the Stiftung – Spuren – Gunter Demnig (Foundation – Traces – Gunter Demnig).
In addition, behind Gunter Demnig's Stolpersteine is a small team of permanent employees and freelancers:
In 1991, Gunter Demnig laid a color trail in Cologne to commemorate the deportation routes of the Sinti and Roma. A few years later, when he replaced the trail with brass lettering, an older woman approached him, praising his project but doubting that "gypsies" had lived in her neighborhood. Gunter Demnig then realized that many stories were no longer present in the consciousness of today's population.
He knew he had to start a project that would bring remembrance to the cities and streets and mark the places where the victims lived and where the crimes once began. Initially, the Stolpersteine were a purely conceptual idea, and only after the first stones were met with approval from relatives of the victims did he decide to expand and continue the project.
Gunter Demnig designed the art concept for the Stolpersteine in 1992/1993 and has continuously developed it. Not only is each stone a work of art, as it must meet aesthetic standards and is handmade by a sculptor, but all the stones and people involved also form a Social Sculpture (according to Beuys) in their entirety.
The STOLPERSTEINE art project, as conceived by Gunter Demnig, involves not only engaging with individual fates but also includes the installation of the finished stone. He wants to be on-site to ensure a dignified installation, which includes seeing the location for the installation and having contact with those present and the relatives.
With the Stolpersteine, he wants to counteract the Nazi mass extermination. Therefore, the stones should be installed individually and not en masse, to do justice to the person behind each stone.
In theory, Stolpersteine can be installed anywhere the Nazis committed their crimes and persecuted, humiliated, or murdered people between 1933 and 1945. A prerequisite for installation is the approval of the city, as Stolpersteine are installed on public ground (with few exceptions).
Stolpersteine are always installed in front of the last voluntarily chosen place of residence. Exceptions can be schools, universities, synagogues, or similar places where people once had their center of life.
This project commemorates all persecuted or murdered victims of National Socialism:
Our prerequisite for laying STOLPERSTEINE is that families are "reunited" in remembrance. Therefore, surviving family members are also included at the corresponding address and receive a Stolperstein: for example, children who were brought to safety; young people who went to Palestine; relatives who managed to escape; concentration camp survivors; among others. We also remember those who ended their lives under the pressure of the circumstances at that time.
Stolpersteine serve various functions for us:
Originally, Gunter Demnig considered attaching the plaques to the house walls. However, he abandoned this idea because he would have needed the permission of the property owners, and after expert advice, he had to realize that probably only a few would have agreed. When placed on the sidewalk, he only needs the city's permission and can visibly integrate the stones into the cityscape. They can now be discovered in passing but do not dominate the urban landscape.
Gunter Demnig also deliberately chose brass because it can be polished through friction, for example with shoe soles. In practice, however, very few people step on the stones, so cleaning sponsorships have been established in many places to regularly make the Stolpersteine shine again.
The STOLPERSTEINE are not gravestones. They cannot be, as no real bones lie beneath them. Therefore, one can theoretically walk over them without concern. Gunter remembered that he once walked through St. Peter's Basilica with his school class, completely thoughtlessly, over real grave slabs under which the real bones were still buried. At the Museum for Sepulchral Culture in Kassel, he learned upon inquiry that this is even considered a special honor. The more people walk over the grave slabs, the higher the recognition of the person buried there.
There are a few cities or initiatives that have decided against Stolpersteine. This can have various reasons. However, the most common argument against the stones is that people are trampling on the names of the victims. In this respect, these cities mostly opt for alternative forms of remembrance. This is completely acceptable and enlivens the German memorial landscape, as we do not insist on laying STOLPERSTEINE against the wishes of relatives.
However, our STOLPERSTEINE are strongly supported by the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster.
STOLPERSTEINE are memorial stones, but not gravestones. They are intended to make us reflect on the fates of people and, above all, to reunite families in remembrance who were once abruptly torn apart during the Nazi era. Moreover, we do not want to judge who was a victim of the crimes and who was not. We do not want to measure the suffering of a person who had to hide, leave their homeland, or survived a concentration camp.
If you would like to install a STOLPERSTEIN, contact our coordinators Susanne Weeber (Germany), Alexander Stukenberg (Benelux countries), Nikola Brunner & Andreas Ullmann (Austria and Switzerland), or Dr. Anne Thomas (other countries). In many places, there are already initiatives that organize the installations and are the best contacts for coordination and planning.
If there has not yet been a STOLPERSTEIN installation in your community, the basic prerequisite for an installation is always first the approval of the city. In addition, you should have roughly reconstructed the biographies in advance and know which archives you can research. Please also consider that relatives of the victims should be informed about the installation. You can find more information about this in our steps for STOLPERSTEIN installation Steps for installation.
The easiest way is to directly contact a city or a local STOLPERSTEIN group and ask for an overview. Many groups have now also published publications or set up online databases where the biographies of the victims can be looked up. We are also working on a database that will probably go online in spring 2020.
You should contact the mayor or the city council and request permission for the installation of STOLPERSTEINE in public spaces. Most cities handle it in such a way that a one-time approval is given for multiple installations, which is valid for years.
Yes, the biographies for the inscriptions should be largely researched independently by the respective initiators. It is always advisable to involve archives and historical associations in order to uncover more detailed information about individual fates and the associated historical sources. In this context, collaboration with the Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime (VVN) has also proven successful.
In addition, trade unions can be consulted for political victims, and churches or Jewish communities for religiously persecuted victims. The associations of Roma and Sinti, the associations for homosexual victims, and the victim associations of Jehovah's Witnesses also provide information. Background information for the victims of the so-called euthanasia or medical murders can usually be found in the respective clinics.
Further information can be obtained from the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen or in the online Memorial Book of the Federal Archives.
We ask that you research and transmit the family fates for the period from 1933 to the end of the war in 1945 as comprehensively as possible. In any case, the fate of the entire family should be documented. Please provide information on both deported / murdered and fled / surviving family members.
Before the inscriptions are engraved, we verify the data with the Memorial Book of the Federal Archives. We consider the online accessible Memorial Book of the Federal Archives to be a reliable source. Inscriptions should generally match the data found there.
If, in the course of local STOLPERSTEIN research, verifiable or at least reliable additional or differing information comes to light, feedback to the Federal Archives, citing the source, is very welcome. Please use the feedback option provided with each individual entry. However, please note that the Federal Archives may not be able to immediately update the relevant entries in the memorial book.
The brass surface of the STOLPERSTEINE oxidizes and thus forms a protective layer. Where there is no public traffic to 'polish the memory blank', discolorations from light brown to almost black occur. The changes can vary considerably (the alloys vary in composition).
There are different methods for cleaning; we recommend common metal or special brass cleaning agents from the drugstore. You will need a little water and a simple kitchen sponge. Tools with very hard surfaces such as wire brushes or other hard objects should not be used, as they can permanently damage the brass plates.
When using milky metal cleaning agents, you should apply a small amount to a cloth and not directly to the brass surface. This avoids white cleaning agent residues on the surrounding pavement, which decompose very slowly.
After you have rubbed the brass plate with the cleaning milk, let the agent dry for about a minute and then you can polish the brass. If the cleaning result does not yet meet your expectations, repeat the process.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who regularly clean the STOLPERSTEINE!
We have calculated the costs for a STOLPERSTEIN in such a way that we can ensure our installations and support related remembrance projects. The €120 or €132 covers the following aspects:
If you organize an installation, you should expect to pay €120 (in Germany) or €132 (outside Germany) per stone. Additionally, there may be costs for Gunter Demnig's overnight stay. You will be informed about the overnight stay six months in advance when the installation routes are fully planned. You do not need to expect any additional costs.
The STOLPERSTEINE are financed through donations and sponsorships. Many places arrange it so that there is a sponsor for each stone. Sponsorships can be taken on by private individuals, institutions, educational institutions, companies, associations, school classes, or political parties. We work on a trust basis. You pay for the stones only after they have been installed.
No. The surface of the STOLPERSTEINE is made of brass, which is cast in concrete to obtain the shape of the typical STOLPERSTEIN.
Gunter Demnig is employed as an independent contractor by the "STIFTUNG – SPUREN – Gunter Demnig" and receives an average fixed salary. All payments and donations for the STOLPERSTEINE are paid into the foundation's account. The foundation is non-profit and is audited annually, so that the funds can neither be embezzled nor spent for private purposes.
STOLPERSTEINE are usually financed through sponsorships. If you would like to become a sponsor of a stone, contact the respective city and write to the local initiators. You can find an overview of all STOLPERSTEIN initiators on our homepage.
Of course, you can also support our foundation independently. We use the non-earmarked donations, for example, to finance long travel routes, maintain our free-admission museum, build the database, or for educational work with young people.
In this case, please transfer your donation as follows:
Recipient: STIFTUNG – SPUREN – Gunter Demnig
Bank: VR Bank Hessenland e.G.
IBAN: DE69 5309 3200 0001 4534 08
BIC: GENODE51ALS
Purpose: Donation for STIFTUNG – SPUREN – Gunter Demnig
We thank you in advance for your support!
For unrestricted donations over €200.00 that you transfer to our foundation account, we can issue a donation receipt. We cannot issue a receipt for the payment of the Stolpersteine, as you are acquiring a work of art that is transferred to the city as a donation after installation.