The closest thing to a gravestone<\/p>\n
Jewish family members oftentimes will travel from all over the world to attend the stone-laying ceremonies, because many of the victims were gassed in the Nazis\u2019 concentration camps and these memorial stones are the closest thing to a grave or a burial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Stolpersteine are some kind of substitute for the missing gravestones,\u201d Michael Tischler said after Wednesday\u2019s ceremony. The 72-year-old Berliner is a great-nephew of Berger, who perished in the Holocaust like several other members of Tischler\u2019s family.<\/p>\n
\t \u201cI think this brings the family history to a certain conclusion, or at least a provisional one,\u201d Tischler said.<\/p>\n The memorial stones not only bring solace to the families of the victims, but they have also created some kind of grassroots movement that brings together neighborhood initiatives, schools, and religious communities to research the history of their city.<\/p>\n However, dozens of such stones across Europe have been vandalized<\/a> since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel. On the one-year anniversary of the brutal assault, ten stones were stolen<\/a> from the German town of Zeitz.<\/p>\n Researching Berlin\u2019s Nazi past<\/p>\n Together, old and young browse through archives and check timeworn resident lists to find out if any Jews or others who were persecuted during the Third Reich \u2014 such as communists, gays, or Roma \u2014 used to live in the streets or even homes where they live today.<\/p>\n Once they can confirm a victim\u2019s former place of residence, they arrange for a stone-laying ceremony and make sure the brass plaque is polished periodically, so it won\u2019t lose its shine.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, several 10th graders from the Friedrich-Bergius-Schule attended another Berlin stone-laying ceremony on Stierstra\u00dfe, where many Jews used to live.<\/p>\n Demnig\u2019s three new stones for the Krein family \u2014 Michael, his wife Maria, and their daughter Dalila \u2014 brought the number of Stolpersteine to 62 on this street.<\/p>\n While Maria and Dalila managed to escape to the US and to the British-controlled Mandate of Palestine, respectively, Michael, a musician, died in Berlin in 1940 as a forced laborer under the Nazis.<\/p>\n \t High school student Sibilla Ehrlich, 16, watched as a group of violinists played solemn melodies and some elderly neighbors talked about the lives of the three Jews under Nazi dictatorship.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is just so horrible, all this the hatred of others,\u201d she said. \u201cI keep thinking: what if this had been my family.\u201d<\/p>\n Before the Holocaust, Berlin had the biggest Jewish community in Germany. In 1933, the year the Nazis came to power, around 160,500 Jews lived in Berlin. By the end of World War II in 1945, their numbers had diminished to about 7,000 through extermination and emigration.<\/p>\n All in all, around 6 million European Jews were killed in the Holocaust, in addition to the other groups targeted by the Nazis.<\/p>\n As Germany commemorates the Allied liberation from the Nazis 81 years ago on May 8, many people in Germany fear that the lessons of the Holocaust may be forgotten as the far right is quickly gaining influence in Germany again.<\/p>\n Tischler, too, worries about his country\u2019s future in times of rising antisemitism, but he says the memorial stones offer a glimpse of hope.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope that these Stolpersteine will still give some people pause for thought,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tArtist Gunter Demnig places a palm-sized brass Holocaust plaques called \u201cStolpersteine,\u201d with the names of victims of the Nazi regime in front of their former home at a street in Berlin, Germany, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo\/Markus Schreiber)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP26126587808033-e1778143888951-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tFlowers lay near palm-sized brass Holocaust plaques of the Krein family, after the so called \u201cStolpersteine,\u201d by artist Gunter Demnig, in Berlin, Germany, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo\/Markus Schreiber)<\/p>\n
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