Stumbling stones are memorial stones measuring approximately ten by ten by ten centimetres that commemorate victims of the Nazi regime and its allies. Since January 1995, they have generally been set in the pavement in front of the last freely chosen place of residence of people who suffered persecution. 121,000 STOLPERSTEINE1The spelling follows that of the creator, Gunter Demnig, who established STOLPERSTEINE as a wordmark. in around 1,900 towns and communities in 32 European countries (as of October 2025) now form the world’s largest decentralised memorial.
The STOLPERSTEINE are the work of German artist Gunter Demnig (born 1947). Their creation can be traced back to two memorial projects that Demnig implemented in the early 1990s in Cologne, Germany, in memory of the persecution and murder of Sinti and Roma. The first STOLPERSTEINE were laid for this group of victims.
The Artist
Gunter Demnig was born on 27 October 1947 in Berlin and studied art education and industrial design at the University of Fine Arts in West Berlin from 1967 to 1977, art education at the Art Academy / University of Kassel and fine art at the University of Kassel.
He made an early appearance with artistic interventions in public spaces, such as a work on the Vietnam War (1968). Since the 1980s, Demnig has been engaged in wide-ranging artistic interventions in the public space, some of which revolve around the art world itself. He connected places hundreds of kilometres apart by walking the respective routes and marking them (for example, ‘Duftmarken Kassel-Paris’ in 1980 and ‘Ariadne-Faden Kassel-Venedig’ in 1982). However, he also created works that dealt with the destructive violence of World War II (1981 ‘Blutspur Kassel-London’ [Blood Trail Kassel-London], 1983 ‘KASSEL 22. OKTOBER—ZEHNTAUSEND TOTE’ [KASSEL 22 OCTOBER—TEN THOUSAND DEAD]). Demnig’s works—including spatial and sound installations and works with written characters—have been shown in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums since 1981.
‘May 1940—1000 Roma and Sinti’
Gunter Demnig opened his own studio in Cologne in 1985. There he met Kurt Holl (1938–2015), a teacher, activist and co-founder of the Rom e.V. association, which campaigned for the right of residence for Roma threatened with expulsion. Through Holl’s mediation, Demnig wanted to translate the first article of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’) into Romanes for his ‘Human Rights’ project. For this work, which he was working on in 1989 to mark the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, he had already had Article 1 translated into 120 languages and burned into individual clay tablets in phonetic transcription.
In the spring of 1990, during a conversation in Holl’s regular pub, the idea arose for a ‘trail’ that would draw public attention to the genocide of the Sinti and Roma. The campaign was to take place in the run-up to the opening of an exhibition being prepared to mark the 50th anniversary of the deportations of May 1940, sponsored by Rom e.V., the Regional Association of German Sinti and Roma in North Rhine-Westphalia and the EL-DE-Haus e.V. association (Friends of the ‘Documentation Centre on National Socialism of the City of Cologne’ [NS-DOK]).2The exhibition opened on 16 May 1990 in Cologne and was developed by Karola Fings and Frank Sparing. See Nur wenige kamen zurück [Only a few returned]. From 1990 to 1993, Karola Fings provided expert advice to Gunter Demnig in the remembrance projects on the genocide of Sinti and Roma.
Drawing on the historical documents used for the exhibition, Demnig conceived a trail about 20 kilometres long, that led from the former detention camp in Cologne-Bickendorf, past former places of residence of Sinti and Roma and institutions of persecution, and across the city to the deportation platform in Cologne-Deutz. Demnig later explained how he came up with the idea for the trail: ‘Article 1 also means the right to remember, to remember how this human right was wiped out on the streets of this city.’3Interview with Gunter Demnig, in Rom e.V., Ein Strich durchs Vergessen, 21–24, quote 22. To realise the project, he had his ‘trail apparatus’, which he had used for earlier works, brought from the Documenta depot in Kassel to Cologne. The apparatus consists of a wheel that has been converted into a hand-operated printing cylinder with an attached paint container. On 6 May 1990, Demnig used this apparatus to stamp the words ‘May 1940—1000 Roma and Sinti’ thousands of times in white paint on pavements and roadways in Cologne.
The trail caused quite a stir in the city and sparked interest in the history and current circumstances of the Sinti and Roma in Cologne. This prompted Rom e.V. to apply to the City of Cologne for the trail to be listed as a historical monument. However, as it was foreseeable that the lettering would gradually fade and become invisible over the years, a longer-term practical solution was sought. Gunter Demnig then designed stone slabs inlaid with brass lettering. The finance was to be provided by sponsors, while the city was to approve the installation and accept the objects as a donation. Following a resolution by the Cologne City Council on 18 March 1993, the stone slabs were finally placed at 23 selected locations in the city.
The Prototype
A few weeks earlier, on 16 December 1992, Demnig had once again commemorated the Nazi crimes committed against Sinti and Roma. The event took place in cooperation with Rom e.V. and with the participation of numerous Roma who feared for their permission to remain in Cologne and were threatened with expulsion. In front of Cologne’s historic town hall, Demnig had a 15 x 15 x 15 centimetre stone embedded in the pavement; it bore the first lines of Heinrich Himmler’s (1900–1945) infamous Auschwitz decree engraved on a brass plate. The stone has a hollow space in which a copy of the decree is stored.
The town hall was deliberately chosen as the site for the laying of the stone to remind people of the historical responsibility of the city and state towards members of the minority. As no permission had been obtained, city officials demanded that the memorial stone be removed. However, thanks to the commitment of activists and the intercession of some politicians, it was preserved. Since then, the genocide has been commemorated in a prominent location in the city centre.
Concept and Breakthrough
In the summer of 1993, Gunter Demnig developed his STOLPERSTEINE project. He received a decisive impetus for this when he laid one of the stone slabs with the brass inscription ‘May 1940—1000 Roma and Sinti’ on a pavement in Cologne’s Griechenmarkt district. A local resident approached him during the installation and claimed that ‘no Gypsies’ had ever lived on the street. However, the names of those affected were verified by archival sources. This convinced Demnig that the memory of the victims needed to be given a more concrete and specific form. Passers-by should literally ‘stumble’ across this repressed history in their everyday lives.
His concept was therefore to create a separate memorial stone for each victim. Engraved on a brass plate would be the words ‘Hier wohnte’ [Here lived], followed by the name, year of birth and persecution history. The stones were to be laid in front of the last voluntarily chosen residential address and commemorate all groups of victims. Without funding and without the City of Cologne’s approval to lay the stones, Demnig produced 230 STOLPERSTEINE. More than 100 of them were dedicated to Sinti and Roma. He researched information on the other people to be commemorated, the majority of whom were Jewish victims of persecution, but also other victim groups such as political victims or homosexuals, with the help of the Documentation Centre on National Socialism of the City of Cologne (NS-DOK). As with the trail, the finance was to be provided by private sponsors, while the city was to grant permission for the laying of the stones and accept the memorial stones as a donation.
However, the bureaucratic hurdles were high; the city initially did not want to approve the proposal for various reasons, including formal considerations as well as considerations relating to the politics of memory. In September 1994, Gunter Demnig presented the STOLPERSTEINE he had produced and his concept in an exhibition at the Protestant Antoniterkirche.
Overall, the response was positive, but there were also strong objections, particularly from the then existing Sinti Union Cologne. Their criticism was directed against the names on the STOLPERSTEINE, as the memory of the deceased should not be ‘trampled underfoot’. There were also fears that survivors or relatives, some of whom still lived in the same streets or neighbourhoods, could be involuntarily identified as Sinti and Roma due to their identical surnames and be exposed to racist hostility or even attacks. Such fears were entirely reasonable in view of the racist violence that had reached considerable proportions in the Federal Republic of Germany in the early 1990s.
At the instigation of the Sinti Union Cologne, Gunter Demnig therefore anonymised the STOLPERSTEINE already made for Sinti and Roma. The names were changed to ‘Sinto’, ‘Sinteza’, ‘Romm’ or ‘Rommni’.4See the database ‘Stolpersteine in Cologne’ of the Documentation Centre on National Socialism of the City of Cologne: https://museenkoeln.de/ns-dokumentationszentrum/Stolpersteine-in-Koeln [accessed 27/10/2025]. The index allows you to select the victim group ‘Sinti and Roma’; the results show a few names and the anonymised stones. They are among the first STOLPERSTEINE ever laid. These are the only anonymised STOLPERSTEINE. Later, the artist decided to lay only STOLPERSTEINE with names.
On 4 January 1995, in an act of civil disobedience – permission had still not been granted – Gunter Demnig laid the first STOLPERSTEINE in Cologne, specifically for Sinti and Roma, in the very neighbourhood where a resident had denied their existence. The following year, Demnig laid more STOLPERSTEINE in Berlin5On 2 and 3 May 1996, 50 stones were laid in front of residential buildings on Oranienstraße, where the Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst e.V. (nGbK) was based at the time, on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Artists Research Auschwitz’ organised by the nGbK. and Cologne, and in 1997, the first officially approved laying of STOLPERSTEINE took place for two Jehovah’s Witnesses in St. Georgen, Austria.
The breakthrough came on 13 April 2000: after Gunter Demnig had appeared before numerous committees and authorities, the Cologne City Council approved Demnig’s concept and accepted the donation of the STOLPERSTEINE. This not only made it possible to lay further memorial stones in Cologne, but also enabled numerous activists in other cities to follow this example and push through the laying of stones.
On the occasion of the artist’s 60th birthday, the NS-DOK opened the exhibition ‘STOLPERSTEINE. Gunter Demnig and his project.’ During the opening, art historian Prof. Manfred Schneckenburger (1938–2019), twice artistic director of Documenta, classified Demnig’s work as part of a series of new artistic explorations of the Holocaust that broke with the abstract formal language of memorials since the late 1980s. ‘Artists, too, recognised,’ said Schneckenburger, ‘that memory in Germany inevitably revolves around the Holocaust. […] Demnig is the artist who expresses this most decisively. He found a strategy that insists that the Holocaust began even before Auschwitz: in looking away, closing oneself off, accepting, remaining silent.’6Speech by Professor Manfred Schneckenburger on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition ‘STOLPERSTEINE. Gunter Demnig and his project’ on 26 October 2007 at the NS Documentation Centre of the City of Cologne, 4 pages, quote on p. 2.
Development
Over time, STOLPERSTEINE has established itself as one of the most significant cultural remembrance projects in Europe. The project owes its success to its participatory concept, which encourages people to get involved: only when people commit to commemorating a persecuted person in their hometown and are also willing to contribute a certain amount of money (currently 120 euros within Germany and 132 euros outside Germany per stone) can a STOLPERSTEIN be created. In this way, the project gradually encouraged thousands of citizens to engage with the history of their locality during the Nazi era and World War II and to search for traces of the victims. Often, especially in smaller communities, the research carried out in connection with the laying of STOLPERSTEIN stones marked the beginning of an examination of Nazi rule in the locality. The visualisation, individualisation and naming of victims who would otherwise have remained nameless, and the concretisation of the actions of the Nazi regime in their own hometowns, also make the project interesting for schools.
In the early years, Gunter Demnig personally crafted and laid each individual stone. He was supported in this by coordinators, first Uta Franke (born 1955), then Karin Richert (1950–2022), who agreed the texts of the inscriptions with the initiators and planned the artist’s travel routes. By the end of 2006, Demnig had laid around 9,000 STOLPERSTEINE in 193 locations in Germany and seven locations in Austria. Since then, interest has grown steadily in other European countries as well. In 2015, the 50,000th stone was laid, and in 2023, the 100,000th. Accordingly, the team responsible for implementing the installations has also grown, including (among others) his wife Katja Demnig, née Walter (born 1975). However, great importance is still attached to handcrafted production and individual design of the inscriptions, and Gunter Demnig continues to personally carry out the initial installations in each location. In doing so, he remains true to an important part of his concept: the murders in the Nazi killing centres were carried out ‘factory-style’, but the memory should preserve the individuality and dignity of the victims.
Initially, only those who had been murdered were honoured with a STOLPERSTEIN, but Demnig later dedicated stones to all persecuted family members, including those who had survived deportation and camps or in hiding, those who had taken their own lives in the face of the threat (‘flight into death’), or those who had been able to escape into exile. The inscriptions became more detailed and the number of victim groups expanded. Where necessary, STOLPERSTEINE were also laid in front of former workplaces, universities or schools. For places where a very large number of victims were to be commemorated, Demnig developed STOLPERSCHWELLEN, which can contain more detailed information about the context of persecution. For example, on 5 November 2011, he laid such a threshold in Zagreb, Croatia. It commemorates 69 Roma from the Kovačević, Lakatoš, Maleković, Nicolić, Šajnović and Štefanovic families who were deported to the Jasenovac concentration camp in May 1942 and murdered there.7See https://holocaustremembrance.com/news/stolperstein-roma-zagreb-croatia [accessed 28/10/2025].
Local initiatives increasingly involved the families and relatives themselves, seeking their consent, information and material. The installations gradually took on the character of commemorative events, attended not only by the artist but also by survivors and relatives from all over the world, initiators and interested parties.
Only in a few cities—such as Munich—was the laying of STOLPERSTEINE in public spaces rejected.8The city of Munich was guided in its decision by the criticism of survivor Charlotte Knobloch (born 1932) that stepping on the names of the victims was undignified. As an alternative, memorial steles were developed. In Munich, STOLPERSTEINE are laid on (national) state property and private property. The number of private individuals who opposed the laying of stones in front of their homes and took legal action against it—unsuccessfully—is also small, as is the number of cases of damage to or theft of stones. When this does occur, the stones are quickly replaced with the help of local initiatives.
There are now over 1,900 Stolperstein initiatives in Europe. The project has become increasingly international since the 2010s: STOLPERSTEINE can now be found in Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.9An overview – albeit incomplete – can be found at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Orte_mit_Stolpersteinen# [accessed 28/10/2025]. In this context, an immense wealth of biographical and factual knowledge about the Nazi era and World War II has been created: on websites and in mobile applications, in magazines, brochures and books. It is currently impossible to determine how many STOLPERSTEINE have been laid for Sinti and Roma in Europe.10For an example of the publicly accessible knowledge generated by the STOLPERSTEINE, see the biography of Gustav Steinbach (1914–2004): https://www.marchivum.de/de/geschichte/stolpersteine/gustav-steinbach [accessed 28/10/2025].
FOUNDATION – TRACES – Gunter Demnig
In December 2014, Gunter Demnig, now living in Frechen, founded the FOUNDATION – TRACES – Gunter Demnig.11See Gunter Demnig’s website: https://www.stolpersteine.eu [accessed: 28/10/2025]. Its mission is to preserve the artist’s ideas and life’s work and to implement the STOLPERSTEINE project. The administration of the Foundation, based in Alsfeld-Elbenrod in Hesse since 2017, plans to publish a database of all STOLPERSTEINE laid. In addition to the information published on the stones, the database will also make biographies available.
On 13 August 2022, the permanent exhibition ‘Gunter Demnig—SPUREN und WEGE’ [Gunter Demnig—Traces and Paths) opened in Alsfeld-Elbenrod, featuring early works by the artist. Outside the Foundation’s museum, the largest collection of the artist’s work can be found in the Cologne Art & Museum Library.12See https://museenkoeln.de/kunst-und-museumsbibliothek/default.aspx?s=8215 [accessed: 28/10/2025]. Gunter Demnig has received numerous awards for his life’s work, the STOLPERSTEINE.
