German Town Votes to Remove Holocaust Memorial Stones
The town council of Heidenau, near Dresden, has voted to ban the installation of new 'stumbling stones' commemorating victims of the Nazi regime and to relocate existing ones to a distant cemetery. The decision, reached through a secret ballot with 13 votes in favor, 6 against, and 1 abstention, was made possible by an unprecedented cooperation between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. This marks one of the first times a German municipality has decided to prohibit and remove these memorial stones, and it represents a significant instance of mainstream parties collaborating with the AfD, breaking a long-standing political boycott.
The justification provided by the proponents of the decision was that placing memorial stones on sidewalks does not honor the victims, as pedestrians may inadvertently step on them. Instead, they proposed creating a central memorial area in the cemetery for victims of war, tyranny, terror, and deportation. However, civil society organizations and the Jewish community argue that this move aims to marginalize Holocaust remembrance from public spaces.
The 'stumbling stones' initiative, started by artist Gunter Demnig in the 1990s, involves embedding brass plaques with victims' names and details into sidewalks in front of their last known residences. The project, which includes over 100,000 stones across Europe, primarily in Germany and often dedicated to Holocaust victims, seeks to remember their absence within daily life. The Heidenau council's decision effectively halts a request to install stones for Marta and Fritz Goldstein, Jewish residents murdered by the Nazis.
Critics, including Christoph Heubner, Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, condemned the vote as a "transparent and base attempt by Heidenau to again expel the victims of Nazism from the city." Katja Demnig, CEO of the Stumbling Stones Foundation, called the parties' support for the motion "an extremely worrying precedent." The Israeli Embassy in Germany also expressed opposition to the move, with Ambassador Ron Prosor advocating for additional stones as a means to "combat the discourse seeking to obscure the uniqueness of the Holocaust."
The political implications of this vote extend beyond Heidenau. While the national leadership of the CDU maintains a strict policy against cooperating with the AfD, local and state-level party members in eastern Germany have increasingly partnered with the AfD on various initiatives. Recent election results in three German states, where the AfD won in two and is projected to win in the most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, are seen as further threatening the traditional political 'firewall' against the far-right.
