Full Breakdown
Heidenau Council Halts New Stolpersteine Installations
By Drooid · · How we work
Council Decision to Stop New Stolpersteine
The town council of Heidenau, a small city in Saxony, voted last week to suspend plans for twelve additional Stolpersteine—small brass plaques that commemorate individual victims of the Nazi era. The motion, passed with the support of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), halted a proposal submitted by the citizens’ group AKuBiZ to honor further Holocaust victims. Existing stones—five in total, all installed by artist Gunter Demnig—remain in place, but no funding or timeline has been announced for their removal.
Memory Project and Local History
Stolpersteine form Europe’s largest grassroots memorial, numbering roughly 128,000 across the continent. In Heidenau, plaques mark the former mayor Paul Gröger, who was forced to kill himself after Nazi persecution, and members of the Jewish Reiner family, among others. AKuBiZ, which couples history education with pro-democracy work, has long advocated for the stones, arguing that daily encounters with the plaques keep the memory of victims alive.
Political Dynamics Behind the Vote
The AfD, originally a Eurosceptic party, has increasingly framed remembrance culture as antithetical to patriotism. The CDU, led nationally by Friedrich Merz, traditionally rejects cooperation with the far right, yet municipal realities in former East-German states have made AfD partnerships unavoidable. Merz’s party referred media queries to its Heidenau chapter, which did not respond.
Community Reactions
Residents expressed a range of views. Christine Bauer, 85, recalled the war’s aftermath and questioned the ban: “Why would they have anything against the Stolpersteine? It’s easy enough to walk around them if you don’t want to step on them.” Conversely, Juliane, a 29-year-old music teacher, emphasized the educational value of the stones, while 28-year-old cook Philipp said the issue was irrelevant to his daily life.
Verbatim Quotes
- “They want to drive the victims’ memory out of the city centre, just like the victims themselves were driven out,” — Anne Nitschke
- “The point of the Stolpersteine is that you stumble across them every day and then think about who lived here and who was forced to leave,” — Anne Nitschke
- “Why would they have anything against the Stolpersteine? It’s easy enough to walk around them if you don’t want to step on them,” — Christine Bauer
- “I’m a child of the war and remember its awful aftermath,” — Christine Bauer