Dear friends and neighbors,

These brass-covered paving stones are called “Stolpersteine,”--literally, “stumbling stones”--and they are outside the former homes or workplaces of victims of the Holocaust (Jewish people, but also non-heterosexuals, the disabled, Christian dissenters to the Nazi party, Sinti and Romani people, black people, and members of many other groups). There are over 40,000 of these stones installed by the artist Gunter Demnig all over the world. When I was working in Berlin, whenever I noticed one on the ground–and they are everywhere–I always stopped to read it. They read “hier wohnt,” meaning “here lived,” (Or “hier arbeitet,” meaning “here worked”) and then the name and birthdate of the victim, the day they died, and where they were murdered. It’s an art project, not a civic initiative, so Demnig has to get permission from each local government before he can install them in the sidewalks. Sometimes the permission is denied so there are many Stolpersteine that have not yet been dedicated.

The Holocaust did not begin with labor camps, ghettos, concentration camps, pogroms, or death squads. None of it suddenly happened. It happened under the noses of the people, and it began with the normalization of discrimination and hate. It began with party loyalty over moral integrity.

I don't care if your resistance is different from mine. I don't care how you express it. But do what you can, find your way, find your group, and promise yourself, for the millions of people murdered before, that this will never happen again.

Yours,
Meg