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Stolperstein

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91–100 of 187 posts

Re: Stolperstein

#91

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Wow. Taking a fringe opinion even within the German/international Jewish community and posting as if this was the majority opinion is interesting at least. Please don't make it into a flame war. Because I strongly believe this is a topic that needs to be discussed. Esp. given the background in Germany with gravestones as plaster. But also it needs to be acknowledged that the project does absolutely not intend a "mit…

In the spirit of beneficial discussion: Nowhere I implied that that was a majority opinion with Jews. It was - however - a popular opinion of influential members of Jewish organisations within Munich, back when the ban was originally enacted.

Re: Stolperstein

#92

I'll preface this by stating that this is probably not a popular opinion. Notwithstanding the ideals behind the Stolpersteine, they are not exclusively a positive influence. The problem lies in one of the defining characteristics of this project: the stones are placed in front of the houses where the Jewish victims who got deported and executed lived. This means that if you happen to live in a house tenanted by these…

I live in one of these houses and don't mind. Most of the time, you don't even think about it. In the few moments you do, it's just a reminder of what can go wrong.

Re: Stolperstein

#93

I'll preface this by stating that this is probably not a popular opinion. Notwithstanding the ideals behind the Stolpersteine, they are not exclusively a positive influence. The problem lies in one of the defining characteristics of this project: the stones are placed in front of the houses where the Jewish victims who got deported and executed lived. This means that if you happen to live in a house tenanted by these…

It's not uncommon to have memorials in places where they are very much present in every day life, e.g.:

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_verwoeste_stad A statue remembering the bombing of Rotterdam, in a busy place in the centre of Rotterdam.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagage_(Leiden) A monument in multiple pieces remembering deportation. Most of them are placed in residential areas, in full view of the people who live there.

Re: Stolperstein

#94

I'll preface this by stating that this is probably not a popular opinion. Notwithstanding the ideals behind the Stolpersteine, they are not exclusively a positive influence. The problem lies in one of the defining characteristics of this project: the stones are placed in front of the houses where the Jewish victims who got deported and executed lived. This means that if you happen to live in a house tenanted by these…

I'm not sure why being reminded of the horrors of the past would make you feel guilty.

You are living in a home that would otherwise perhaps still be occupied by the people (or their families) that were taken away.

Re: Stolperstein

#95

I'll preface this by stating that this is probably not a popular opinion. Notwithstanding the ideals behind the Stolpersteine, they are not exclusively a positive influence. The problem lies in one of the defining characteristics of this project: the stones are placed in front of the houses where the Jewish victims who got deported and executed lived. This means that if you happen to live in a house tenanted by these…

I gew up close to Nuremberg and like to take a walk to visit the dead whenever I'm there, as well as check out various Nazi grounds which ...are just part of our history. My family is also of polish origin (I was born and raised in Germany) and I've spent time in Cracow and Munich,so I make points of visiting the memorials whenever I visit friends there.

My perspective is: this isn't only for the dead, it's also for the living. This can happen again if we do not make a culture of remembering, and of not shying away from the uneasiness. It should make us feel uneasy that our neighbours, our family, ourselves might have participated in the holocaust, or fallen victim to them - that everyone involved was normal people. Having some parts of the land of the living dedicated to this when not even a century has passed is a small price to pay.

And as far as prices to pay go, Stolpersteine are literally the least possible intrusion. There would be a similar stone in the same place, the Stolperstein is simply made of a different material and burns the reminder into the city so that holocaust deniers and their ilk have a harder time. And like the name implies, the point is to not have a sanitized, dead, tucked away safely memorial "respectfully" shoved into some corner of a park - where it can be safely ignored.

"Never again" is not an empty slogan, or something that will happen automatically (as we can see with genocides and ethnic cleansings around the world continuing since then) it's something that we all have to work towards. The Stolpersteine are part of the Erinnerungskultur and in my opinion, some of the best parts.

Re: Stolperstein

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why being reminded of the horrors of the past would make you feel guilty.

Survivors guilt can be severely debilitating for some people. I can also see folks who are severely depressed, bipolar, or other conditions that involve irrationally strong responses to negative stimulus would be impacted by a constant reminder of horror. I think I agree with the author here - I don’t know I would appreciate my home being marked as the site of an atrocity. Our homes are for the living and the future.…

Read enough twitter threads, and you find people for whom eating morning cereal can be severely debilitating.

In my opinion, people are able to learn to deal with uncomfortable things in their lives.

Re: Stolperstein

#97

I'll preface this by stating that this is probably not a popular opinion. Notwithstanding the ideals behind the Stolpersteine, they are not exclusively a positive influence. The problem lies in one of the defining characteristics of this project: the stones are placed in front of the houses where the Jewish victims who got deported and executed lived. This means that if you happen to live in a house tenanted by these…

[flagged]

Re: Stolperstein

#98

I'll preface this by stating that this is probably not a popular opinion. Notwithstanding the ideals behind the Stolpersteine, they are not exclusively a positive influence. The problem lies in one of the defining characteristics of this project: the stones are placed in front of the houses where the Jewish victims who got deported and executed lived. This means that if you happen to live in a house tenanted by these…

Here's my two cent counter-argument. Captialism is the biggest ruthless killing machine, whatever form it takes: nazism (Hitler was put to power by German industry/bourgeoisie), fascism (Mussolini advocated for State/Capital unification under "corporatism"), State capitalism (USSR was not very different from a people's perspective, with salaried work and gulags and political police), or ordinary liberalism (French republic orchestrated the colonization and slavery of many folks, even long after slavery was formally abolished, under the form of wage slavery).

Yet there's little memory of those massacres and injustices, except for casualties of war who get the whole triumphant nationalist ceremonies to spit on them. Maybe a plaque for the dead workers who built a mountain road/rail, or for the victims of the Commune of Paris/Lyon/wherever. It's very discreet, when it exists at all, when it doesn't fall into the narrative of the State.

I don't know about younger folks, but when i was in school we got told so little about the history and reasons for these people to have died, when talking about it at all (good luck finding a history teacher spending more than 1 hour on the Paris Commune or the Algerian independence War). And we got told exactly zero about the living popular history of our own neighborhood and how people defied those injustices.

Whenever i find a plaque, memorial, carving or whatever remembering the past (and its mistakes) i try to take some time to investigate it, and i often learn something interesting. So much happened right around us, yet we are told/taught so little, and in the cities urban renovation driven by gentrifiers makes sure this history stays hidden and that only advertisement and store fronts remain.

Is that really the environment we want: an efficient, emotionless and pastless business machine? I personally don't want that. I wouldn't go so far as to call you a NIMBY resident, but i certainly encourage you to think or read about popular history, gentrification, and what it means when the latter tries to erase the former.

As a side note, i don't know about the netherlands, but here in France it's common for neonazis to deface the memorials honoring the (jewish or not, but the jewish in particular) victims of nazism. I agree with you it's bothersome in some sense that jewish victims are honored more than other categories of nazism victims (tsigans, cripples, homosexuals, etc), but if the alternative is to make the neonazis who'd like to rewrite history happy, i'm very happy with the current state of things.

Re: Stolperstein

#99
post #93

I'll preface this by stating that this is probably not a popular opinion. Notwithstanding the ideals behind the Stolpersteine, they are not exclusively a positive influence. The problem lies in one of the defining characteristics of this project: the stones are placed in front of the houses where the Jewish victims who got deported and executed lived. This means that if you happen to live in a house tenanted by these…

It's not uncommon to have memorials in places where they are very much present in every day life, e.g.: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_verwoeste_stad A statue remembering the bombing of Rotterdam, in a busy place in the centre of Rotterdam. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagage_(Leiden) A monument in multiple pieces remembering deportation. Most of them are placed in residential areas, in full view of the people who…

Those are a lot more abstract though, placed in much more considerate locations (I have lived in Leiden myself), and not nearly as numerous. You can tell that a lot of thought went into the planning and realization of these.

Having an actual name on it makes it a lot more personal (which is the intent after all), and having hundreds of them all over historic areas of any given town makes it a barrage rather than a subtle reminder.

Re: Stolperstein

#100

I'll preface this by stating that this is probably not a popular opinion. Notwithstanding the ideals behind the Stolpersteine, they are not exclusively a positive influence. The problem lies in one of the defining characteristics of this project: the stones are placed in front of the houses where the Jewish victims who got deported and executed lived. This means that if you happen to live in a house tenanted by these…

[flagged]

Working as intended indeed,as they draw out anti-semitic comments even if you just discuss them, allowing us to debunk it https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/c... and be appropriately distrustful afterwards

(for context once flagged, the comment I responded to was spreading a variant of the Elders of Zion "jews try to control us via world government" conspiracy myth)

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