The Stolpersteine / Stumbling Blocks

Dec 18, 2023

Friends, I am not sure where this writing belongs in my prospective book, but these are some of the questions that seem relevant in the departure of 2023 and the coming of 2024.

I read an article or two about Stolpersteine years before I learned of plans being made to install these memorial stones in my father’s childhood home of Berleburg, Germany. The letter I received from a religious leader in town provided context about the project and a request for a contribution. Stolpersteine (commonly translated as stumbling blocks or stumbling stones) are 10- by 10-centimeter plaques placed in the sidewalk outside the last known residence of people persecuted by the Nazis. The artist Gunter Demnig conceived of the project in the early 1990s. Demnig cited a verse from the Talmud as inspiration, “A person is only forgotten when his or her name is forgotten.” Demnig has been asked about the project’s name. Per the Stolpersteine website,

Gunter Demnig no longer remembers exactly how the name came about. But what is certain is that he chose the name before knowing that there would be more than one installation. He liked the double meaning of the German word because he wanted to provoke people into “stumbling” mentally. Contrary to what certain online sources claim, Gunter Demnig did NOT want to create a link to a certain anti-Semitic expression apparently used in Nazi Germany that he did not even know. When asked about the name these days, Gunter Demnig tends to cite a schoolchild who once answered a journalist’s enquiry as to whether people could actually stumble on a STOLPERSTEIN and trip thus: “You don’t trip on a STOLPERSTEIN, you stumble with your head and your heart.”[1]

I considered the request from the Berleburg committee briefly and then made a small contribution, enough to say I contributed, but not enough so that someone could say the project was primarily funded by “outsiders.” Reading through these emails from 2008, I discover a back-and-forth with my aunt Lucie about Berleburg’s dedication ceremony for the Stolpersteine. Lucie would not attend the ceremony if the Stolpersteine committee or some other group in town, did not send her an invitation and air fare. Though I had been interested in attending, once Lucie would not be going, I let go of those thoughts.

In “Monuments to the Unthinkable,” the American writer Clint Smith compares the German and American responses to projects to honor those affected by the Holocaust / slavery. He describes a discussion with Barbara Berger of Berlin, “When I asked Berger what she thought of the Stolpersteine, she told me she feels ambivalent. On the one hand, she said, the project has brought communities together to research their history. But she finds the idea that people are stepping on the names of Jewish people deeply unsettling. “Every time, I cringe,” she said. “They should be plaques on the wall. And why aren’t they? Because most of the owners of buildings wouldn’t accept, even to this day, a plaque saying, ‘Here is where a Jewish family lived.’ ”[2]

Sometime since my aunt Lucie’s death, I received an email from Germany describing a website/guide [3], primarily for children, to the Stolpersteine of the Nordrhein-Westfalen province. The email requested photos of my dad and other family members. I collaborated with my cousins and sent off a few photos.

Eight (?)-year-old Aunt Lucie is in the middle of left bank of children

Several months later, I found out that the site was live. With excitement, I went to see what they’d created. Here’s the Google translate version of what they wrote about Aunt Lucie.

Lucie Weinstein grew up as Lucie Krebs in Berleburg. Her parents were secular Jews and the family was well integrated into the community. Lucie especially loved Christmas. In contrast to her non-Jewish friends, she received presents twice: first for Hanukkah and then again for Christmas, which the family celebrated together with their Christian circle of friends.
When the National Socialists come to power, the atmosphere changed drastically: Lucie was repeatedly harassed in everyday school life. On Kristallnacht in November 1938, an angry mob destroyed the windows of the family home with stones. Lucie's father did everything he could to get his family out of Germany - with success: in 1941, the family traveled from Lisbon to New York on an overcrowded cruise ship.
In the USA, Lucie met her husband Stanley Weinstein. She studied art history, received her doctorate from Yale and taught as a professor at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven. Later she visits Berleburg. She was always willing to talk to children and young people about their experiences under the Nazi dictatorship. In addition, at her suggestion, a memorial for the murdered Berleburg Jews was erected.[4]

The Lucie loved Christmas comment really got under my skin. I spoke to my cousin David, her son, about it. His comment was, “she loved it so much that we never had a Christmas tree or celebrated it in any way.”

I wrote to the website coordinator that they should consider revising the text: A ten-year-old Germans should not be led to believe that Jews love to celebrate Christmas. I offered to re-write the text.

The response that came said,

Thank you very much for your offer to contribute to the content. But it is not possible for us to publish texts that are created from people who aren't part of the project. We do take your critique seriously and will examine the topic with the involved departments of the project….[5]

I fear, should Aunt Lucie be looking down from the heavens she would have labeled me a wimp, not for the first time, for failing to follow up until they got it right. But I don’t have the same gravitas as Lucie. Who am I to best tell the web developers how best to reach German students? Since Lucie’s death, do any Holocaust survivors visit Berleburg and speak to students? What else are students exposed to at what age?

Among the many points made by Clint Smith in his writings on the German and American approaches to memorializing past atrocities, is that there is no one one-size-fits all approach. In the United States we want to allow children to connect with people who were enslaved, not just generals or presidents. In Germany we want to make room for sympathy with the victims of Nazi persecution. In humanizing the persecuted we enable people to connect with complicated feelings.

All of this brings me back to my own project, which is taking form as I write this page. My task is not primarily to give voice to the complaints of my persecuted relatives, nor to describe my own circumscribed childhood.

But delving into the particulars of my family’s past in a concentrated fashion has allowed me to understand my frailties and limitations. The immigrants’ tenacity is a wonderful thing. I was lucky to be exposed to two generations of people who worked tirelessly to shed their financial, religious, and patriotic insecurities.

Tenacity has only gotten me so far. I have been searching for perspective and understanding in a world that changes with inconceivable rapidity, and right now not for the better.

I hope your year ends with perspective, love, and kindness for all the earth’s beings. May we all enjoy the night skies, the warmth of friends, family, and strangers. May we embrace those who do not share our good fortunes.

The Stolpersteine / Stumbling Blocks

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