Sweden will soon get its first Holocaust memorial ‘stumbling stones’

There are more than 70,000 small brass plates placed on the streets of Europe, outside the last known homes of people killed in the Holocaust

By Josefin Dolsten 21 May 2019, 6:38 am

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Mandy Eisemann from Dickerson, Maryland. with her son Levi (4), relatives of the Cohn family, places flowers at four "Stolpersteine" (stumbling blocks) for Karolina Cohn and her family in Frankfurt, Germany, November 13, 2017. (Arne Dedert/dpa via AP)

JTA — There are more than 70,000 small brass plates on the streets of Europe placed outside the last known homes of people killed in the Holocaust. The memorials are called “stolpersteine” in German, or “stumbling stones.”

Sweden will soon get its first three.

On June 14, the stones will be placed at locations in Stockholm where three men had lived after finding refuge in the city, according to a statement Monday from several groups involved in the initiative. The men were later deported and killed.

Two Holocaust memorial groups and Stockholm’s Jewish community organized the project in cooperation with the Stockholm municipality.

“The ‘stumbling stones’ are an important reminder that the Holocaust happened not too long ago, and not very far away from here, that also affected us here in Sweden,” said Tommy Ringart, who leads the Association for Holocaust Survivors, one of the co-sponsors.

The project, the largest decentralized memorial of its kind, was created by German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992. The majority of the stones commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Plates include the name, birth year and fate of the person memorialized.