In which countries are there Stolpersteine?

Stolpersteine lie in about 30 European countries. The project began in Germany, in Cologne, and then spread. Among the countries with stones are the following:

• Germany
• Austria
• the Netherlands
• Belgium
• France
• Italy
• Luxembourg
• Norway
• Denmark
• Poland
• the Czech Republic
• Hungary
• Slovenia
• Ukraine

The beginning in Cologne

The German artist Gunter Demnig set a first stone in front of Cologne’s historic town hall on 16 December 1992. That stone recalls the 1942 order to deport Sinti and Roma to Auschwitz. The first Stolpersteine for individual people were laid in Cologne in 1995, and in Berlin-Kreuzberg in 1996. At first these stones were laid without official permission.

How the project spread

In 1997 the first officially approved stones were laid in St. Georgen near Salzburg, in Austria. From 2000 the city of Cologne gave permission, and the project grew from there. Stones are requested and paid for by private people and local groups, so each stone is laid on request. For many years Demnig laid most of the stones himself.

The Netherlands and Belgium

The first Stolpersteine in the Netherlands were laid in Borne in 2007. Belgium followed in 2009. In the Netherlands and Belgium together there are more than 15,600 stones, according to Stichting 18 September in Eindhoven.

Many people in both countries were persecuted by the Nazis. Of the roughly 140,000 Jews living in the Netherlands in 1940, about 102,000 were murdered. Most were deported through the transit camp Westerbork in Drenthe, to Auschwitz and Sobibor. Auschwitz and Sobibor were places of mass murder. In Belgium, Jews and Roma were deported from the Dossin barracks in Mechelen, most of them to Auschwitz. More than 25,000 people were deported from there.

Stones outside the Netherlands and Belgium

Since 2019, Stichting 18 September has kept a database of Stolpersteine in the Netherlands and Belgium, together with local organisations. That database now also includes stones in other countries, so the map shows stones outside the Netherlands and Belgium as well. You can search for a stone by name, street or city, whatever country it lies in.

To find stones in your own town, search by name, street or city on the map.