Every ‘stumbling stone’ monument to local residents of the eastern German town of Zeitz who fell victim to the Holocaust was apparently ripped from the pavement by unknown perpetrators on Monday.
Stumbling stones, called “Stolpersteine” in German, can be found throughout Germany and elsewhere in Europe. They are small copper plaques the size of a small cobblestone, placed in front of the last place where identified Jewish people and others persecuted by the Nazi regime ever lived.
The plaques list the names of the victims, as well as what is known about their fate.
In Zeitz, local officials noticed on Monday that all ten stumbling blocks in the city were missing. This day marked one year since the deadly attacks on Israel on October 7.
A municipal spokesperson said a criminal complaint has been filed with police, who are investigating the crime and possible political extremist motives.
According to police, the stumbling stones are believed to have been stolen during the night from Sunday to Monday, although the last confirmed sighting of the memorials present was on Friday.
Zeitz is a city with just over 30,000 inhabitants.
The act was “inexcusable and never excusable,” wrote Götz Ulrich, the district administrator of Burgenland, to which Zeitz also belongs. “Anyone who does this also wants to rip the Holocaust out of our memory culture.”
Gunter Demnig, the German artist who started placing stumbling stones across the country and laid many of the plaques himself, said thefts have repeatedly occurred.
To date, approximately 112,000 Stolpersteine have been laid in 32 countries around the world. Demnig said about 900 were stolen.
He pointed to two incidents that both occurred around the anniversary of the Nazi-led Kristallnacht pogrom against German Jews on November 9, 1938. In 2012, all the stumbling blocks in the northern city of Greifswald were stolen, and seven years ago at least 16 in the Berlin district Stumbling stones were stolen in Neukölln.
Demnig said he saw a clear connection with the Oct. 7 anniversary and the theft of the stumbling stones in Zeitz.
But he said the holes in the pavement won’t last long. He promised to replace the missing stumbling stones and to pass them on to Zeitz as soon as possible.
The Stolpersteine for Zeitz initiative, a group of local residents formed in 2006 to install the stones in the town, has called for a walk next week to all ten locations where the small memorials have been removed.
