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            On Stumbling
Over stumbling stones?
No, no one stubs their toe against them.
They're embedded so evenly into the paving.
But the names they carry, the letters and numbers, Are stamped on our conscience;
Are stamped on our conscience;

"born, deported, murdered"
And the places
Łódź, Minsk, Riga, Theresienstadt,
Auschwitz, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka ..."

        We look for you
Whose names are written in the archives
and the heavens.
We find you in places of terror and persecution.
We recognise you in your children and grandchildren.
The stones speak of you,
        every day.
You are not forgotten.

Inge Grolle
(translation by Dr. Anne Stokes and Ingrid Haas)

Stumbling Stones in Hamburg

The horror didn’t start in Auschwitz,
Treblinka or in other camps ...

... it started in our neighborhood,
in our house, outside our door.

Since 1995, Cologne based artist Gunter Demnig has been commemorating the victims of the German Nazi regime through his project "Stolpersteine” – Stumbling Stones. All over Germany, the artist has been laying small memorial stones in sidewalks and pavements outside those houses where the people lived or worked who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazi regime. 2002 the first Stumbling Stone was laid in Hamburg and many followed ever since.