Why are Stolpersteine the largest decentralised memorial?

Stolpersteine are often called the largest decentralised memorial in the world. Decentralised means that the memorial is not in one place. Its stones are spread over many towns and streets, in about 30 European countries.

What decentralised means

A centralised memorial stands in one place, such as a square or a building. A decentralised memorial consists of many separate parts in different places. Each Stolperstein lies at the address where the person last freely lived or worked. The memorial is therefore found in the streets of the towns where people lived.

How many stones there are

There are more than 100,000 Stolpersteine. The 100,000th was laid on 26 May 2023 in Nuremberg. In the Netherlands and Belgium together there are more than 15,600 stones, according to Stichting 18 September in Eindhoven. Since 2019 that foundation has kept a database of the stones in the Netherlands and Belgium, together with local organisations, and it now also covers stones in other countries.

Why the stones are spread out

Each stone is requested and paid for by private people or local groups, such as relatives, residents and history societies. Volunteers research the person’s life and look for relatives. In this way the memorial grows step by step, place by place. Gunter Demnig often quotes a saying from the Talmud: a person is only forgotten when his or her name is forgotten.

How it began

The German artist Gunter Demnig, born in Berlin in 1947, had the idea in 1992. On 16 December 1992 he set a first stone in front of Cologne’s historic town hall. 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. From 2000 the city of Cologne gave permission, and the project grew from there. Since 2005 the stones have been made by hand by the sculptor Michael Friedrichs-Friedlaender in Berlin.

To see stones near you, search the map by name, street or city. You can see who is commemorated at an address, and sometimes a photo of the person. There is also a free app for iPhone and Android.