German town bans 'stumbling stone' memorials to Nazi victims
Germany's education minister has branded the ban on the small brass memorial plaques a "scandal".
In Heidenau, a small German town near Dresden, councillors from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and the conservative CDU have unanimously voted to ban the installation of stumbling stone memorials. These small brass plaques, known as Stolpersteine in German, are embedded in streets to commemorate victims of Nazi atrocities and are often funded by donations.
The decision comes after a wave of criticism from various quarters, including Education Minister Karin Prien, who called the ban a "scandal," and Holocaust survivor Charlotte Knobloch, who described the move as "completely the wrong approach." Knobloch, president of the Jewish Community in Munich, emphasized that decentralised remembrance, including stumbling stones on public land, is essential to a genuine culture of remembrance.
Gunter Demnig, the artist behind the Stolpersteine project, suggested that the AfD's recent electoral success in Saxony and other regions might be a contributing factor to the decision.
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