They can be found in 2,000-plus towns and cities across 24 countries, including Argentina, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Russia, Slovenia and Ukraine.
There are now more than 70,000 of these stones around the world, spanning 20 different languages. How Crete changed the course of World War Two.A French village committed to deception.Each plaque is a 10cm brass square affixed on top of a cuboid concrete block that’s installed into the pavement directly before a Holocaust victim’s last known, voluntary residence. In the corner, there’s a simple workbench, where Friedrichs-Friedländer has left a hammer, a set of metal stamps, and a sheet of paper bearing a series of names, dates and the word ‘Auschwitz’.įor the last 14 years, Friedrichs-Friedländer has hand-engraved individual Holocaust fates onto small commemorative plaques called Stolpersteine, or ‘stumbling stones’. A large-scale map of Germany is pinned to the far wall. There’s a back door open onto a garden, letting in a wash of late-afternoon sun. Inside, the garage smells of fresh cement, with lingering wafts of strong coffee and cigarettes. “The neighbours all know what I do, but I don’t want any outside trouble.” “I’d ask you not to mention the precise location,” he said. He casts a watchful glance down the road, as if to check I’ve come here alone. At the end of a quiet, suburban cul-de-sac in north-eastern Berlin, Michael Friedrichs-Friedländer quickly ushers me into his garage.
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