for the fallen

       Still, after about eight decades, visions of “stumbling stones” always remind me of the violence that I witnessed as a youngster in Germany during World War II.

     And my connection to the stones has grown even more intense since I got a chance to take part in laying one on the very street where I lived.

      The stones -- actually engraved brass plaques embedded in the ground -- are historical markers, created to commemorate victims of the Holocaust, the unprecedented Nazi attempt to eradicate Jewish people.

      Whenever I see “Stolpersteine,” as they are called in German, I can’t help remembering some of the horrific events which occurred while I grew up in Ludwigsburg, a small city in southwest Germany that was well known for culture but was heavily bombed during the war. 

     Then, again, how could I forget such experiences in Ludwigsburg?

     Watching the destruction of the synagogue on Kristallnacht in November 1938.

     Seeing the words “Star of David” and “Jew” and other graffiti that Nazis painted on local buildings such as the Ludwigsburg Stern department store where my mother did most of her shopping.

     Going to visit our family physician, Walter Pincus, at Mathildenstrasse 6, just two blocks from where we lived, Gartenstrasse 3 – until the doctor was sent away to the concentration camp in Dachau and murdered there. 

     All of the stumbling stones are placed in the street or sidewalk in front of buildings which were homes for Holocaust victims.

     Nearly all the engravings are virtually the same: HERE LIVED … with the name of a man or woman, a date of birth, deportation date and death date, if known. 

     Although I’ve lived in the United States for almost 70 years, I go back to Ludwigsburg occasionally. On one trip, I had the honor of taking part in the placement of three Stolpersteine. It was quite an emotional  ceremony -- on Friday, October 28, 2016 .

      A small crowd was there to pay respects to the deceased: Wilhelm Ruth, who had died in 1940, along with Josef Michelbacher and Ernst Scheufler, who passed away a year earlier.

      The stones aren’t literally intended to cause anybody to fall, but placing them in the ground might cause people to “stumble” with their hearts and minds when they spot these little memorials – stopping in their tracks to read inscriptions and remember what happened during the Holocaust.  

     They were created through the “Stolpersteine Project,” which was initiated in 1992 by a German artist, Gunter Demnig. Now, it’s estimated that there are about  100,000 stones in more than 1200 towns and cities – from Germany to some two dozen other European countries including Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and Ukraine.

      I think many people feel as if the world stands still when they stand before a stumbling stone in a vibrant neighborhood. Looking at the engraved name of a single individual triggers an empathetic reflection of the life that might have been lived on that very street.

      It is not uncommon to find multiple stones on the same street. They always are the same size – measuring 40 by 4 inches – and less than 500 of them are produced every month because all are manufactured by hand.

      Even now, after more than 30 years, the project is far from finished. There are many cases still to be researched and stories to be told about victims of Nazi crimes – people who were murdered because of their origins, political opponents of the Nazis, people with illnesses or disabilities.

      The genocide committed by the Nazis was so unique and carried out with such technical and bureaucratic perfection that one might think it could never be repeated. But I think that would be a big mistake. We can't rule out the possibility of new forms of exclusion and conformity, selection and totalitarianism. 

      We must remain vigilant. We must remember our past. Only those who remember the past can avert dangers for the future.