Wear a musk and get v4c1neted, or you aren't allowed to do this and that and the other... People have very obviously learned nothing, have they? Once again, mindlessly obeying a lying government.
This is also extremely valid in the current state of the world. Many Russians claim that "the west" is "russophobic", but the truth is, that most do not hate the common Russian, but the actions carried out by Russian leadership... But we also look at these common Russians with expectation, because it is their obligation to prevent their leaders from turning the entire world into nuclear wastelands. Only they can change the mindset ruling their country. Putin is like Hitler with a 100x more destructive "toolbox" The population of a country will always carry some sort of responsibility for the actions of their government, although they can't be blamed for a leader going insane. If their leader starts striving for violent world domination, it's time to say stop and do whatever it takes to change the fatal course.
The intention to put them on the Ground is: You need to bow your head to read them. So while reading you pay respect at the same Moment because you bow your head. These Ceremonies are very touching.
Why is it about respect at all? I thought it was about remembering. How can you respect someone for being killed? You can only mourn someone or remember someone who was killed. Respect is so weird in that sense, I honestly don't understand what respect has to do with it. Instead I have respect for the people who finance, put in and maintain the Stolpersteine.
@@vomm Respect comes from the latin word respectio means looking back, observing etc. (wikipedia). To pay tribute or respect you bow your head. It has therefore a much deeper meaning than for being killed. And the respecthing came from the guy who started the Stolpersteine. Bowing your head as gratitude is very common in other parts of the world. "Den Diener machen" (to bow like a servant) might not being an american thing but from european traditions it's a huge big deal. We lower our head to gratitude someone else in front of us, we let our guard down, being not in charge to look the opposite in the eyes for a split second.
I agree with Heike. It's of course also a sign of mourning to bow your head in front of a Stolperstein. But think why you should bow your head? It's originated as a sign of respect and trust towards someone who is higher than you. And respect in this case also means respect towards that persons life. Even or especially if that person may not have been respected in life.
@@vomm what a weird thing to say. Respect has different meanings. It doesn't only mean to obey to someone's authority but also to acknowledge someone as a person with the same value and rights . Paying respect to people that our ancestors dehumanised, tortured and killed without reason is the least we can do .
Germany is definitely a role model when it comes to being honest about your past, admitting your mistakes and working on making things better. I really; really admire and respect Germany for that reason. Many other countries should take this as an example. The US, with Native Americans and slavery, France and the UK with their former colonies, Japan with their "comfort battalions" and experimentation on prisoners at Unit 731 during WW2 ... And so on. It's definitely not about feeling guilty for what our ancestors did. Not even about hating your own country. It's about making sure it never happens again. For a better future, we need to learn from our past and be honest about it.
@@andreaskonig3767 Sweeping dust under the carpet and turning a blind eye to that kind of horror never solved anything. Remembering allows education and education is the only key to make sure it never happens again. Only people with a very weird state of mind talk about guilt when it comes to being honest about History. That kind of comment says way more about you than you seem to realize.
@@almamater9566 You mean to keep those Germans bound in guilt? Or are you saying that Americans should do the same with their victims? There would not be enough stones on this planet. And if you talk history, please include ALL historical atrocities... for whosoever is without guilt may throw the first stone (ups, they're embedded in Germany's footpaths to keep reminding them for the sake of keeping those Germans fear and guilt bound).... And I am not only talking about America... however, they do it very cleverly. They call it defending their homeland (even though they didn't have to fight on their own ground, but it sounds good) But yes, go ahead and tell me what it is you think you know about me. I can tell you who you are: A person who has a limited view of these things. Go learn! You may be surprised.
@@andreaskonig3767 Once again you are just being extremely dishonest !! Knowledge, education and honesty have nothing to do with guilt. Calling it guilt to try playing the victim just because you're a coward unable to face reality is sad but that's a you problem buddy ! The world doesn't revolve around you and remembering, honoring and respecting those who didn't survive that kind of atrocity is way more important than you self-centered discomfort. Not remembering or discussing these events on the other end would mean silencing the victims once again and in a way validating and normalizing what happened. The fact you can't understand that says a lot about you. Including all atrocities ? Did you even read my first comment ? I talked about France the UK Japan and so on ... That's exactly what i did. Don't lecture anyone on knowledge when you can't even read. Live up to your own standards first. That's clearly not the case yet. What's wrong with you ? And when it comes about learning i think my PhD in History is already enough ... Guess who has a limited view on facts and History now ? All i see here is a butt hurt brainwashed indoctrinated typical basic idiot that left school way too soon for their own good and prefers spending their time whining than facing facts and reality and working on becoming a better person. Can't you just accept once in a while that the conversation is not about you ? ... You are ridiculous and kinda disgusting tbh. Self criticism is hard, i get it but it's unfortunately the only way to grow and improve. But since you talk about the US, considering what the country became in the last few years it is highly recommended and necessary to start doing some kind of self reflection. Open your eyes and face a mirror. It's high time. It's not even a democracy anymore and certainly not a country anybody could look up to.
I think the Stolpersteine on the ground are really good, I‘ve noticed myself stoping and reading the stones/ thinking of the victims. That would never happen if they put it on the Wall... Although I can understand why you could think that it would be disrespectful, but I think most Germans see it as a thing of respect and remembering ... :)
I would like to add, that if you see such a "stolperstein" on or in the ground and just stop without stepping on it, you show even more respect than to a plaque on a wall
@@Hirndille Yes, that's true. My mother even told me not to step on them when I first encountered them as a child, out of respect for the victims. And that's still in my mind so whenever I see them I avoid stepping on them and I think most people act the same.
And the name is chosen well: you stumble upon them, during your everyday life, and remember that other people were deprived of their lives. Not like monuments, which are part of "high culture" - you see these while shopping or taking your kids to school. This form of the stones is used solely for this purpose, it makes them unique and even more powerful.
I have seen these walking the streets of Berlin. I think it makes a statement to place them in the ground. I mean isn't that where bodies are laid in the end? In the ground. Further the way they are placed interlocking with the cobblestones is a way of saying the people memories are interlocked in to the place they lived.
I am from Germany. And to be honest- I took the way Germany behaves with his mistakes for granted. When I went to America I was shocked how they glorify their past or just don’t acknowledge it. I feel like some people in the US don’t even know what their country has done in the past. When I was younger I thought every country does it like Germany. Because it was so normal to me to know about the past and to talk about it. Now I really respect it and in a weird kind of way I am proud of that.
I´m from Germany either and I have to admit that the whole dealing with it for not denying it, went a bit to early to far for me. I had to learn throughout a lot of classes every step of Hitler and his biography, I had to analyze his and his fellows speeches and other propaganda, I had to visit Dachau at age 16, where they were showing us real footage of the freeing of Dachau. As a very empathetic person, it nearly killed my soul to have to always be aware of that burden and also to have to see that footage at that age ( I was not grown to this at that point). In my education we had to learn everything about Hitler´s arising at the age of 11/12 and also about the counter movement. We had to write exams about it. We had to read the Diary of Anne Frank which is an ego-perspective on the life under terror and hide and the part where you just losing the battle...I was too young to understand the full gravity of it, but I understood the pure evil. For the following years it would be brought up every now and then in classes, like German class, history class, Ethics and so on....But I always felt torned about it because of the following and please hear me out on that: The Nazi Regime took 6 Million Lives, round about and we are made aware of this til today, the Russian Regime killed under Stalin 30 Million people and no one talks about it (they should!), the US killed through it´s "Go West" movement mostly between 10 to 15 million native Americans (numbers can differ by the source). The US slaved another approximately 10 million Africans and no one talks about it by real, for the torture I had to go to as a child. It was traumatic for me. And I questioned my teachers, because there were so many examples of other cultures and why we had to go over and over and over it all the time, without considering the mistakes from other cultures and countries. And the response I was getting all the time was "because we did it and it is our duty to prevent this ever happen again in our name!" I grew older and understand much more...about myself, about history...but I was feeling like before, it broke me, the thought about what people can do to each other broke my soul...and I was growing up more.... At this point in my life I was aware, that the Nazi´s not only did that to Jewish people but to gay/queer people also...and I was one of them...that came to my 16 year old mind sitting there in Dachau...feeling this creepy feeling when you´re surrounded by fear and death, I saw the footage and thought the whole time, if I was born just a few decades earlier this could have been me, the corpse staked on a pile...I could have been one of them, just because of the person I was and how I was born. And yeah, it´s traumatic for me to this day! But I will never forget the burden we as Germans have to carry. I will never forget where fatalism can lead to and I will do everything I can in my lifespan to prevent this happening again! And yeah, I think there are countries, especially the US that need to step up the plate and do some significant change in their education and recognition. It´s traumatic to face your past sometimes, but it prevents you from going this direction ever again, if you felt just a touch of it what this would mean...
I've actually met the artist doing the Stolpersteine twice: once when we put some in the ground in front of our old school and once when he did a project with my dad and his friends to honor victims from a specific deportation train. He actually still lays most of the stones himself to ensure it's done in an honorable way. As for them being on the ground that originally started because for signs on the houses you'd need permission of the owner of the house and not just of the city. But he specifically chose copper because that's being polished from the friction of people walking on it, so actually stepping on the stones honors the victims and makes their memory more readable. I think it's a very good symbol of them just being part of every day life and their memory being kept even by people that choose to be ignorant to it. Since so many people avoid stepping on them there are actually volunteers in many communities that polish the stones by hand regularly.
They also draw attention because when you step on them, you notice the difference immediately and look down...basically bowing your head for the victims in the process.
I think they are made of brass from the color. I once was in a city, maybe Saarbrücken?, where the stones were set in upside down. Means the brass was without inscriptions. Which I find strange if not ridiculous. Nobody is able to read the names as you cannot dig them out and turn them. It might have a symbolic reference of the fact that there were so many people affected. But it makes it less personal and more like a statistic. At least I have not understood what the purpose is and why it should be better than laying them in the more conventional way. But perhaps those were placeholders for names to come? I really don't know because we were told that by a tourist guide.
Some homeowners were against it at the beginning because of the stumbling blocks. It would reduce the value of the house. Not all homeowners, but some. The Stolpersteine have a high value for me. Especially that the victims of this regime are remembered and . . . that the Germans today are still reminded of what happened in their name. Because there are still the eternals of yesterday. They still don't see themselves as guilty today. 3 miles from where I live, I saw Stolpersteine in Goethestraße in Ottweiler and I was very touched. Some were liberated, were able to escape to a foreign country and unfortunately some died in the camps. Berta Maas was a strong woman and I think She was a heroine. Berta Maas fought and survived.
What? A Swiss, liking Germans? Are you sick? Na….. just kidding, I like Germans too, and we Swiss peeps can learn a lot of them. 😊 Didn’t know about the Stolpersteine until now, but in my opinion it’s an amazing way of remembering. We should always remember our past, in order to not repeat mistakes from the past, and repeat great things that have been done. If only, other, more powerful countries would do the same. And yes, I‘m looking at you, Russia, China and America!
In my school a Gymnasium in Germany, we integrated the Stolpersteine in the ground last summer with additional paintings from our art classes, music from our chorus and orchestra and historic information from our year 9 and 12 history classes. It was a really special and touching moment.
Before Corona each years 12th grade advanced history class went to the place where the synagoge stood and the students from certain parts of town reread the names of departured jews who lived there...
Die Stolpersteine hat Gunter Demnig entwickelt. Er mein Jugendfreund seit 1958. War mein Nachbar und Schulkamerad am Gymnasium. Anfangs wurde er für diese Idee angefeindet. Inzwischen ist er hoch geachtet.
I live in Germany. My great grandfather also received a stumbling stones. I think it's very beautiful that Germany honor these people with these stones
I think the "Stolpersteine" are an unobtrusive but very powerful means of remembering history and conveying responsibility. You're supposed to walk over them, but you dodge one or the other or stop to read the inscription. The passage becomes hesitant, one literally stumbles over history. Other countries deal with dark history differently than we Germans do. I saw a snippet of an interview with Tom Hanks the other day, in which he said he learned all about the Holocaust in school, but no one ever told him about the Tulsa race massacre. He seemed very upset at the way the US is handling its own dark history.
I heard very often that children and people in the US also don't go visit plantation homes and learn about slavery. I couldn't believe it bc it is such a major part of the history of that country. Everything they have today was built on the back of slaves!
Yes, germany does take it seriously. Other seem to cover it up and strike it from their history. Also all of this is important and helps to remember what facism does. And that shows also on a political scale.
There 5 Stolpersteine right in front of our House. A family with three children. The oldest son died in the age of 8 years old, the two girls aged 6 and 2. My son is now 8 years old. And he knows about this stones and their history. I sadly can't change the past, but I can try to change the future. Stay healthy.
My son was two years old when he first asked me about the Stolpersteine in our street. It's a great way to teach children about our history and also how to treat them with respect.
I was born 1960 in a small town in Germany and there were no jews in my class, or in the whole town. I learnt that there was a building called "the old synagoge" and I sometimes read in the newspaper that graves were destroyed in a jewish cemetry of the neighboring village. But until I grew up, nobody told me that this was not hundreds of years before, but that jews lived in our town until the war, just 15 years before I was born. Then, in my 50s, I drove my father up a hill and he told me to whom the vineyards belonged. When he mentioned that one of them belonged to "Rotschilds" I was stunned and asked, that is a famous jewish name, did we have jews here? "Yes," he said, "Katharina was sitting next to me in my class." And after a moment: "I was not right what they did to her." I love to have the stolpersteine now.
Yes, stepping on the Stolpersteine could be construed, with much malice, to be showing disrespect to the memory of the dead. But in contrast, most people are very aware of them and actively try NOT to step on them. In addition, if you stand in front of them to read them, you automatically bow your head, a bodily position of deference and respect. While raising your head to read a plaque mounted on a wall, especially higher on a wall, might actually be seen as disrespectful as you now don't bow to the dead anymore. In addition, most people usually focus on the ground somewhere in front of them, not on walls, to search out potential dangers to where they might step. As such a stumbling stone is much more likely to be noticed than a plaque on a wall. While I certainly don't disrespect this leader of the Jewish community in Munich, I still disagree with him on banning the stones in the ground for those reasons above.
I would also like to add, that almost every german student visits a "KZ-Gedenkstätte (KZ-Memorial)" once in their school career. It was a moving and humbling experience i will never forget!
I learned that from my relatives in Germany. It sometimes happens over here in Austria to. My school didn't do that, I know others did and I'm kind of jealous. Mainly because, while I'll never be able to fully understand what the people who these memorials were built for went through, I want to at least give them my respect and learn more about what the victims went through. I know from visiting museums that it's very different to learn about history while your surroundings showcase parts of what happened, than just learning about it in school or at home.
Not true, only a few do it. Not many and absolutely not almost every. Thats why the Zentralrat der Juden in Germany always asks every now and then about making it mandatory for every school.
@@readingdino711 Maybe Austrians should learn about their past and their participation in the extinction of jewish people as well. It was NOT Germany alone, that just like that started the herassment and killing of jewish people. It was common all over Europe. Germany of course took it further than most other countries and made a killing machinerie out of it. But other countries participated. And nobody talks about that. It's a shame!
as a german I don't feel very patriotic but still... when he red the first sentences of his book I felt a strong chill and kinda started crying bc it made me really happy somehow
I don't think any german is patriotic. We might not hate our country but we're definetely indifferent. The only time some might be patriotic is during the football/soccer season. And really only those few.
Also Germany pre ww2 and post ww2 can’t really be called evil. It had a strong military culture thanks to Prussia but in and of itself that isn’t evil. And ww1 wasn’t caused by Germany, all of Europe at the time was a powder keg waiting for a spark. Hell, Germany can’t even exclusively be blamed for ww2. If it weren’t for the Allies (specifically France) wanting to blame Germany for everything that happened in ww1 and wanting to punish them as much as possible, the resentment and anger that allowed the NSDAP to rise would probably not have been there to such an extent.
@@MaticTheProto Thank you for this comment. I feel like most people just get taught that it was only the germans fault. I'm not denying that they did horrible things and were not innocent at all. I'm just happy that some people do know that there was already a small fire across all of europe that needed a small push to become uncontrollable-
I live in the north of Germany and the city I work in has tons of Stolpersteine. It always makes me cry in a good way when people put down flowers and candles to remember what happened in the night of broken glass. I also think that Germany is doing the whole education thing right. In class 9 and class 11 my school drove us to old labour camps which are now museums. Being there made you truely undestand how horrible it must have been back there. As someone who has Polish roots being there almost made me throw up, but I'm thankful for my school making sure that we really understood that the Holocaust was no joke.
I'm Czech and we have these as well. Sometimes I walk through the city, making a point of noticing them. It's frightening how many there are. There's a main street I frequently walk. It's lined with old apartment buildings. There barely is an entryway without these stones in front of it, many have as much as six or eight. Must have been entire families. And I look at that house and wonder how many people lived there and that some of these huge houses must have ended up almost entirely empty. And with how this year has been going on, I notice the stones a lot.
When he mentioned that there are about 70000 of these stones around I imagined how many of them there needed to be if the real number of victims were to be represented. Your comment gives a good idea of that.
Actual in my city in Germany people come together like every year to clean the Stolpersteine .This way we keep them clean and shiny.People always look on the ground while walking.A shiny golden stone they recordnize at once .And most people stop then and read the names. And i also have seen that older people touched them.I asked one lady about it and she told me:They were our neighbours.When we were kids.We played together and i never forgot the night when they came to bring them away.so every time i come along here , its a bit like a gravestone you touch. A lot of people dont try to step on them.I love that.Its very respectful. This victims got a name by this stones .They got their name back.Every year my city tries to find out more adresses where the victims lived and we place every year about 30-60 stones in the ground in a little ceremony .We dont know where their bodys are ,but we know where they lived... and we should NEVER forget about them.We teach our kids from early days on what this stones mean. Because nobody wants the past to repeat again.THIS should NEVER happen again. Today in Germany we are more than 40 nationalitys and all kinds of religions .We are living door by door...we are friends ..we are familys...we are HUMANS ... and we all should never forget that fact. Conflicts we should find a peaceful solution for ...on whole world. We should treat each other with respect. This stones are showing clearly what happens if respect is leaving a nation...when humans are going against each other by stupid reasons ... Lg & tc
We actually have a Stolperstein infront of our school. Most students don‘t pay attention to it but I always try to not step on it, just to pay a little respect to the victims. It’s really sad what happened in our past but we can’t change it. We can just try to never let something like this happen again.
I share your views on the Stolpersteine, their placement on the ground is not disrespect, it raises attention. If you don't know about the Kristallnacht, you should change that fact.
People NOT stepping on the stumbling stones causes it own problems btw. Most people try not to step on them, which makes them build up patina and makes them unreadable and slippery after a while. Only if people walk over them from time to time, they stay shiny and safe. So some people argue that you MUST step on them to preserve them and history. Yeah, there really are long and serious discussions about that topic alone.
step on them to show that the dark history is a thing of the past that you move away from. But now and read them to show respect to those they are dedicated to.
1. The book is a real recommendation. I've read it over the last weeks and still have the last chapter to read, but I can only recommend it to everybody who wants to have a look into the mindset of our country and people, politicians and public. It brought me a lot of insights and some bitter pills to swallow. The author is a British journalist who spent a big part of his working life in Germany. 2. The Stolpersteine are a powerful tool of memorial as they change the abstract number of people killed and tortured by the Nazis into individuals with personal fates. This may sound cynical but one victim (of anything) is a tragedy, thousands of victims are just a number in the news. And to read the victims' names, dates of birth, dates of deportation, and their fates is just so much more powerful than a number in a textbook. 3. I never stepped on a Stolperstein. They are set at places where a normal passer-by doesn't walk, but they are visible enough to stop and think about the humans behind the names.
Even if you accidentally step onto them, that shouldn't be taken as an insult, but as an accident. The intention makes the insult and if stepping onto them makes you realise the story of the people, who lived there and makes you empathise with them, this accident did more than most plaques on the wall do and should not be taken as an insult. And if someone wants to insult them, they will do so anyway wether the names are inscribed on the ground or on the wall. The only thing the wall achieves it, is making it easier to ignore.
The controversy in Munich about Stolpersteine was very unfortunate. Yes, Charlotte Knobloch certainly is a very respected former leader of the German Jewish community and I think it really needs to be considered what someone like her says about the Stolpersteine. But on the other side in some of the cases discussed in Munich, the actual descendants/family of some of the victims who were fighting to be able to put Stolpersteine for their ancestors into the ground. I think it is good, to have a divers culture of commemoration and certainly Stolpersteine are not always a good solution, but I think, in the end, the word of the family members should count more.
I 'm german, I'm too young to have had anything to do with what happened in WWII and on top of that my parents are immigrants. Still, these memorials and stories make me cry. It's a real emotional connection you have, because you've been taught what happened to these people. How their lifes were destroyed. Having that empathy only makes us stronger and more resilient for the future, I think.
In Berlin and the cities surrounding it you find these stones in Front of every other house (and mostly in groups of whole families). Desensities somewhat but also tells you a lot about the scale of it all. Very scary stuff to have a look down the street sometimes and looking at all the shiny stones speckling the ground everywhere.
I actually really like the stumbling stones. I can understand that people might think stepping on it would be disrespectful. But anyone who finds these stones and wants to know who is immortalized on them bows to these stones to read the names on it, thus showing their respect again. You have to look at it from the point of view of the artist who came up with this idea
2:52 The text reads: In the night from the 9th november to the 10th november 1938 on this spot, Haller nazis (nazis from Haller? don't know...) burned down cultural relics, furniture and books from the Jewish praying hall in the Obere Herrengasse 8 (street name, translates to upper gentlemen's alley 8)
Since we're also putting plaques on the walls for every tiny occasion someone famous so much as glanced at that house, the stones in the ground are noticable even for people who last read "Mozart farted in the direction of this house in 1782" and promptly ignored all the other plaques about people who lead pretty nice lives.
As a kid I noticed the Stolpersteine. I think I even asked my parents about them (can't really remember). This would never be the case if there's just a name on the wall. Because these stone in the ground are (way more) remarkable.
Side-note, the steppingstones are placed before an entrance of where said people used to live (at least all that I’ve seen). You’re not walking into a cafe that that person used to go to, you’re walking into a cafe that used to be that person’s home. Which gives you a whole new perspective to think about. We have stepping stones in Slovenia too. Just a few years ago they placed the ones for some of my family, there was a whole ceremony for it. It was really great.
I'm German and we have these Stolpersteine in our litte City as well. There are names from babies and children, who died a few days later after they were deported.Never, never forget and don't let hate rule the World. We're all brothers and sisters ❤
I always walk around the Stolpersteine and when I'm not in a terrible hurry I take a minute to read them and think about the people commemorated and how their lives were.
I dont see it as disrespectful that the Stolpersteine are on the ground. For one, they can be seen as a symbolic part of what Germany is built on, its foundation. So its rather fitting that people walk over them. Secondly, they are called tripping stones - and you dont tripp over something thats on a wall. That you "tripp" over them in a coincidental way just by walking, is the whole point of the things. And I guess its what the artist intended, otherwise he would have put them on walls to begin with.
Germany is not built on these unfortunate 12 years of our history. Do you know who financed Hitler in the beginning? Hint: it was not Germans. So there is that little fact, which some don't like to hear about.
Sorry, but your first "explanation" sounds really terrible if you think about it! " For one, they can be seen as a symbolic part of what Germany is built on, its foundation" Can also be read/interpreted as Germany is built on fascism, WWII and the profits it generated with the holocaust.
Great reaction. I guess this video explains the comments you got for your reaction to that soldiers song a while ago. That song (standing alone without any critical historical evaluation) triggered our "never again" awareness. That is an important part of todays german culture.
To the controversy about stepping on them: people bow their head when looking at them and the community goes down on their knees every year to clean them with little brushes. I think it‘s a beautiful tradition.
As somebody living in Berlin with many stepping stones in my area, I can attest that it is very much a living memorial. You have to consider them every day and think about the people, because you are aware that stepping on them could mean something. I'm a big fan of this and interacting with the stones, even if it is going out of your way by not stepping on them (or doing so and going: oops sorry) is meaningful.
Diese Geschichte darf nicht vergessen werden, sie ist allerdings manchmal extrem traurig, oft hilft nur eine Folge der Comedy 'Black Books' um mich wieder aufzumuntern 😑
Threre is also a practical reason for using Stolpersteine instead of plaques on a house. You don‘t have to ask the house owner who perhaps don‘t like any plaque on his house for whichever reason. But for a Stolperstein the artists has just to ask the local authorities of the community. And most of them if not all wouldn’t say no.
I don't know, if someone already wrote it, but: Some "federal states"/"Bundesländer" and/or Cities of Germany have apps, where you can look up where a "Stolperstein" is and get even more information about the person, who lived there and sometimes they include pictures of the person/persons 😊😊
We have those stones in the ground in Slovakia too, even in my city. Your idea about almost seeing those deceased people standing where you stand and being in their shoes is really great, maybe it would be a better idea if the stones were in form of a shoe sole, reminding their real steps. You could literally stand in their steps.
I completely agree with you. The ground plates are powerful! Because of the reasons you said. They make you feel like you can understand the position of the people. The wall plates are so easily overlooked.
Hey Ryan, your reaction to learn about these Stolpersteine is exactly what the artist wants you to do. Noticing them, starting to think about the story and history surrounding them, and yes, looking down you now your head. I think your reaction is the best example for what the artist‘s Intension is all about. A truly horrific time right there, for you to notice, think about, and to be brought back to the present moment. For sure, Germany is not perfect, and why should it be, we all need to move forward and aspire to be better than before. When I look around, so many people everywhere follow along that idea of working on a better world. Lately it becomes a lot harder everywhere. Mostly that are just distractions, mixed into the real mess surrounding the war in Ukraine, that is more and more also effecting everyone. It seems like the circle is closing , and it took only like 70-80 years. So yes, these Stolpersteine may seem only a tiny piece that get overlooked easily, but the represent so much more. Thanks for the video!
So far so good Ryan, but that is exactly the problem. It's ramming it down our throats as Germans. Ask yourself this question: How many of those, who were also in the concentration camps that were not yous got a Stolperstein? How many of those incarcerated during the war have been commemorated apart from yous? I tell you: NONE! The idea to have it made a Stolperstein is a complete different one: LEST WE FORGET! Nobody shall ever forget. Everyone should always be bound in guilt. Ever looked at it this way? Might be time to open up to a different view.
I love the Stumbling Stones as well It makes you stop and take a look especially nowadays where many people look towards the ground because of their mobiles
To add to your point at 6:36: you dont imagine them walking into that caffee you imagine them being dragged out of that door most of those buildings are still the same buildings as back then, so the probability that they stodd there last before being deported is pretty high
I really like your respectful approach to our history that affected so many people in the worst kind of ways. I am younger than these horrible events and also are my parents. But I feel the great responsibility to make sure that nothing like that will ever happen again. But still sometimes I do not know how. Please forgive that and please remain on our side.
One overlooked aspect of the stumbling stones is - children! They're closer to the ground and can more often be found consciously looking. Info signs at "adult viewing height" are outside their world.
Also when kids see something on the wall, but they can't yet read (or read very well), they usually won't ask anyone, because a lot of things is written on walls. But some weird thing on the ground, that doesn't look or feel the same as the rest of ground is more likely to catch their attention and thus might lead them to ask their parents and depending on the parents learn a bit about our history (of course not the horrible details if they are still very young). And a stumbling stone on the ground literally makes you stumble over it and thus is far more likely to make you recognise it, while a plate on the wall, unless you are actively looking for information, will almost always be ignored. The entire stepping on debate just seems weird to me, as it is also the intention of your action that is relevant. And if someone absolutely wants to step onto the name of a holocaust victim they will kick the wall to step on the name anyway, so it doesn't stop people from being assholes.
@@buecherdrache1 There's also the Hollywood Walk of Fame to be noted in that context, not to mention religious or generally symbolic cobblestone mosaics. Time will tell where the connotation will be headed.
I am German..and I really love my country but because of all that we or my ancestors did, it is often very hard to be proud of Germany. I can't really say why but these two videos made me cry..Thank you
Thank you for this video. I am German and always interested what people from other countries notice when in Germany. The Stolpersteine are imo a fantastic reminder. In my small village there are quite some of them sind there is always someone who polishes them, so they look really shiny and golden, not like in the video, so the, really attract attention.
Damn o.0 We have 0 here and i don't miss them in any way if i imagine that all the paople that aren't able to go fast b.c. they read stuff on the smartphone, would stand still to also read this stuff. There is no need for those things b.c. i can remember things without reading about them everywhere.
Just last week three of them have been installed in front of my home. There was a little ceremony where students read summaries of the people's biographies.
The house in Germany where i used to live was bombed during the war. As a reminder, such a “memorial” stone was visibly cemented in the center of the hallway during the reconstruction period. Each tenant of the house stepped respectfully aside of that stone and was automatically confronted with the past history of this place on a daily basis. As a Belgian i was always deeply touched by this sight. War never really has winners… what we’ve lost is something we all have in common… the love and affection for something or someone… It’s a very good thing to have such subtle reminders integrated in our lives in a very educational enlightening way… and undoubtedly for all subsequent generations.
But it has not changed ANY thing. Americans still get their soldiers primed for war. They are still killing willy nilly without ever thinking about it or flinching if their leader calls them to their 'duty'. Funny that. Wouldn't you rather have a society that says NO to war and not following orders or else? People that can see that war is futile and brings nothing but pain, in the shot as well as in the shooter. Both suffer. So whats the point? The men that call them into war are nothing but morons who want their agendas met. They don't care if we suffer this way or that. Otherwise we would have no more wars. And THAT would be commendable, but not a stone on the path. That is just to keep people guilt bound. And I have never found a guilty person a healthy person. They have to see shrinks and have phobias and other psychological ailments. Don't you agree?
@@andreaskonig3767 I can perfectly see where you’re getting at and yes you definitely have a point there. But this isn’t the topic of this vid. I merely stated my opinion upon given topic that stumbling stones are a great invention. Yes, it might evoke a certain sense of guilt in all Germans, no matter what age group. Even if the much younger generation had nothing to do with it, some would still feel addressed/ involved to a certain extent. None of us, normal people, want war. War is invented by the most rapacious and unscrupulous vultures who can’t get enough of power and money! Let’s take these stones as a silent and yet very visible reminder not to let the inhuman atrocities of a genocide to be forgotten, and not as a leverage to stir up feelings of guilt in the innocent/ uninvolved… as an incentive that this will never ever happen again. But that’s probably going to be the greatest fallacy of all… Mankind doesn’t ever learn from the past…
@@inezdebaue4077 thank you. I find these stones offensive. Not for selfish reasons, but simply as there is nobody else that has been remembered but one ethnic group. And all others seem forgotten. It hurts to even look at this, but more so, as my ancestors died during that time too. Grandpa has never been found. Nor are Germans even allowed to remember or march for their losses, but are being called names instead. THAT is the unfairness of it all. It makes one feel insignificant in comparison. Nobody bows for my or other peoples' ancestors to remember their likewise terrible deaths. This is not selfish or narcissistic or anything like that. This topic is deeper than most younger people know or care to know. It's dynamite. Still.
Thank you for sharing this. I have not heard about stolpersteine until now. Such a beautiful respectful idea for a country. Germany is impressing me so often lately with its examples.
Here in Germany, there are some days at our shools, there are some students, that volunteered to brush and clean the "stolpersteine" or stumbling stones.
Austrian here. We also have those Stolpersteine over here and i think it can be a really powerful reminder. I remember back when i was in school, we even had an excursion one day just walking around the town and searching for these memorials.
You can find the Stolpersteine everywhere in the Netherland in my own town Heerlen too , I did see a online map with every warmonument on them in Europe . It has the stolpersteine on it too
Ryan I really enjoy your videos , I've been living in Germany nearly 12 years now (originally u.k ) and you know you forget how special this place is because it becomes the norm , often when I watch you react I am reminded of my own reactions when I was new here and also makes me a little proud of my adopted country because it really is special.
1:25 Well, speaking of a unified Germany that is. 1870 The multitude of germanic states were forged into a single entity, the "2nd Reich" so to speak (first Reich was the holy roman empire but that's a complicated thing... and not really unified in sense of "one government above all"). But from a standpoint of language, civilisation or inhabitation... "germany" is over 1000 years old. I mean, america existed before the united states as well. What we call the US came to existence with the victory of independence... but that doesn't mean people who called themself "amreicans" did not exist beforehand.
One day, we were reading one of these stumbling stones when the door of the house was opened and an old woman came out. "Oh, you are interested in our stumbling stone", she said. "I was living on the other side of the road back then and I remember when the Gestapo came. It was early in the morning, very early. They did not want to have much fuss, obviously. Th girl living in this house was not a Jew, but a Roma, but that didn't make much of a difference to them. When the Gestapo ringed the bell, she tried to escape and ran to a small shed down the road, but they caught her. People were applauding from their windows. I was so furious back then. 'Don't you realize you might be the next?' I shouted. That made the applause stop, but I don't think anybody gave much thought about it. 50 years later, I bought the house and I'm living here since then. I was so happy when they placed the stumbling stone." It was a very powerfull feeling to hear that story from a first hand witness. Sadly, not many of them are still alive and I don't think my children will ever experience such a moment as I did back then. The thing is: we were reading that specific stumbling stone because someone used it as a hint to a geocach-riddle. We see so many stumbling stones everywere, we stop reading them sooner or later. But that specific one infront of the door of one of the last living witnesses that is obviously eager to tell her story to strangers... I'm sure who ever made that geocache-riddle had done this on purpose, so that many more people could meet that lady and hear her story. And I'm very thankfull for that.
I’m British and i can definitely say Germany is a beautiful country to holiday in, great food great beer and fantastic architecture not to mention how nice the people are 👌.
the stolpersteine were supposed to be standing out the ground and make people stumble so they look down and read. (not literally make people fall but stand out enough to draw attention and then be read - a inconvenience to make people remember like the dark past they inform about)
hey Ryan, i now watched every video of yours. i want to say that its really refreshing to watch you react. i really like your perspective and open minded attitude. i think you should stream and react to videos live with your viewers!
We even have serveral of the Stolpersteine in our small town, our population is about 36,000 inhabitants. You have to know where they are, of course. Mainly they are in front of places where jewish people used to live in our small community before they either were forcefully hauled off to concentration camps or chose to flee the country. It's a very good and helpful way of not forgetting.
Every year on that specific date in November, a lot of people not only light candles near those stumbling stones, but they also clean them, polish them in order to pay our respects and to make sure the stones will last a long time
It is usually on the weekends before the 9th of November. Local clubs and the city councils organise these cleanups, so that the stumbling stones are not damaged while cleaning
Probably on the 9. November. Because of the Reichs Kistallnacht or simply Kristallnacht /"Nacht der langen Messer" (Night of the long knifes) In that Night many Jewish people and political enemies of Hitler very killed and businesses and houses burnd. It's historical and masker wise comparable to the Sait Bartholomews Night in 1572 in Paris.
@@njschnieber definitely for the candles. Commemorative events are held throughout the country on 9th November. The cleaning often takes place the weekend before
I am from Austria and we were confronted with the crimes and cruelty from the past very soon. Teachers didn't only tell us what happened, we visited former "KZ's" , they showed us very disturbing pictures of corpses of human who were trrated like trash. We watched many historic documentations about the madness that was going on. Our teachers invited survivors and / or relavates of such to confront us, but also to make sure that we do understand, that the past of our country is very dark, but also made sure that we understand, that we have the chance to do it better and never let such horrible things happen again.
The video your are reacting to is from Schwäbisch-Hall 😊 I know this village an live in the near of Schwäbisch-Hall, this is cool 😎 Your interpretation about the "Stolpersteine" as a place, were these people stood is a very interesting and nice one 👍
Before Corona each years 12th grade advanced history class went to the place where the synagoge stood and the students from certain parts of town reread the names of departured jews who lived there...
the first thing that comes to my mind is the term "Vergangenheitsbewältigung". At my house you don't have to walk 500m to find a memorial to a synagogue that was burned down on Kristallnacht, including the names of victims who were from here. Hardly another 500 m further you will find the aforementioned "Stolpersteine", all in the inner city area. It's bad what the Nazis did and it's important that we remember it. But our current generation must not continue to feel guilty for what our ancestors did.
We were in Emden for vacation this summer and stumbled over some of the Stolpersteine. And i was thinking the same as you. 80 years ago these people were standing right here where i am right now. It brings a differend feeling with it as just a simple sign on a wall that i would have ignored. You start to imagine what happed here and how they got deported.
...here I completely agree with Nalf and your perception Ryan - these stumbling stones are an excellent idea to deal with this topic and have nothing to do with "trampling with feet on it". Also in the place where I live I see these every day and I am glad that someone placed them...
I’m swiss and we have some “Stolpersteine” as well. It’s sad but I always stop when I see one and read the inscription. It catches your eye and by taking time to read it you can pay your respect. I think they can also visualize just how many there were. When I was in Amsterdam there were some every other street. It just reminds you how many victims there were
What I also love about the stones being on the ground is the fact that to look at them you have to BOW DOWN and indirectly honor the victims that way. A plaque on a wall could be hung up high enough that you have to look up and then you appear like you raise your nose over them as if they are *beneath* you. Sadly in the last couple of years (Trump...) it seems that people, especially outside of Germany seem to forget history. What use is it to be the "bad example" whos history should NEVER be repeated when suddenly this "bad" is considered GOOD by certain people (right wing extremists) all over the world ?
In the village where I grew up, there is a concentration camp cemetery (Dachau Überlingen field station). Every year, a different school class would take care of the graves, unfortunately also removing graffiti.
The major advantage of the stumbling stones are that they are so close to where the gaze of children is so often going. Walking to your city with your 6-year old, and having to explain to her, why there is the name of another child etched into such a stone, a child that never had the chance to grow up...
NALF (Nick) was a film student before becoming a football player in Germany, hence the very cinematic videos he does. He recently premiered his movie about football in Germany called Unicorn Town, which is the team he plays on. It's worth a look. As for the Stolpersteine, you can find them dotted all over and they are a sobering reminder of what happened during the Holocaust. They also initiate a moment of reflection, because you're standing where they once stood and that brings the reality into focus like few other historical markers do.
This is kinda related to the video - I'd love to see you react to Rammstein's music video 'Deutschland' (I know you've seen them before but honestly this isn't comparable with that one live performance). It's an incredible music video, one of the best I've ever seen and it deals with Germanys history and the relationship that the artists feel to their country. As long as you look at the translated lyrics (please that's important) and regard the material with an openness for interpretation it's a really cool experience.
I, as a 20 year old German, find it very sad and disgusting that I am called a "Nazi". Every time when I play in an open lobby with a chat and I say I'm German.... They say that. Sometimes they leave, sometimes that say what disgusting things "I" did and that I should be ashamed. And as a person who is very much against all the things that happened and against war, weapons, a military (if no one has a military there is no war. Theoretically). I am against discrimination and I am ashamed of the older generations that are resist or not respectfully to others, German or not. America has a much larger problem with rasism and violence etc. But yet I am the Nazi in the situation because of where I am from. This is a problem and it needs to change. Maybe it's the lack of unbias education... What I mean is that every country teaches from their prospective, and as one of the countrys that ended the war you teach your heroism and simply say all Germans are bad. This is exsaturated I know... But we learn about the bad, and the good. About the people that had Jewish people in their houses in secret, who helped those flee, who gave their live because they were against the Regime... Even back then there where people who were against it and protested and rather died then be a part of this. So here is my request: Please stop saying to us that we are them. Because we are not. I was born in diffrent times and I do not support any of this bullshit. Let the past die, but not repeat. We are different people than back there who lived in those times. So please be respectful to me as long as I'm respectfully of you. I could call you all kinds of things, but i don't. Because I don't know who you are. Or are all Americans indian people killer. Or rasist pigs and black people murdere. No they are not.
Thanks for the info Ryan, I came across your Australian channel first as an Australian. But this is fascinating to me because my Dad was from Dresden, Germany. He grew up during WW2 - came out to Australia somehow to start a new life, sadly he was so afraid of authority figures he didn't trust the Drs trying to treat him for hypertension and stroke. In the end the strokes took his ability to work as a cabinet maker away, so he no longer saw his value and decided to suicide when I was about 5yrs old. I don't know my families history on his side and may never know, but now I wonder if there is a stumbling stone out there somewhere with a link to the Weber surname? I like to think it would sooth his soul to know that modern day Germany is a much,much better culture now. Thank you again Ryan.
Hey when your father was German and came from Dresden there are organisations which try to help to find information about your family background. Do you know where exactly he was from? With his birthdate you could start in the churches to find information about your father's background
@Belinda Weber There are also the "registry offices" and the police registration offices, as well as the "German Red Cross", which keeps lists of addresses, the church records could also help. Good luck !
I am sorry about your father may he rest in peace do you know the story from 13.02-15.02.1945 there were also air raids on Dresden where thousands died from the phosphorus bombs if you saw the film it was hell the bodys burning from phoshorus also as they jump into the river Elbe the bodys are burning undaneath the old ones people suffered all their lives.
@@blondkatze3547 My mum was two weeks old at the time, and as she had a little lung infection, she and my grandma were sent to a clinic on a mountain to help her recover. My grandma later told my mum that they could see the sky getting all red in the east during the night. They lived in Western Thuringia. It must have been horrifying.
Btw, the artist who puts these stones into the ground says that walking over them polishes them and makes them shinier. So while it might seem disrespectful, it actually helps keep history visible.
In my city in Germany it's a tradition to clean some Stolpersteine at january 27 (in Germany it's a day for commemorating the Holocaust). I think this is also a really strong gesture.
We have these stumbling stones in my hometown aswell.. I think they are a good Idea as memorials. The guy explaining the stumbling stones basically, well, explained it. You have to stop and look at them closely.
Coming across a cluster of Stolpersteine, realizing it‘s a family of five, all with „murdered in Theresienstadt“ written down as their fate.. absolutely tears your heart out.
150 years as a nation, before there were like different German states like Bavaria, Prussia etc. Yeah I think the Stolpersteine are easier recognizable too. If you walk over them shouldn't be a sign of disrespect, unless you think that way
I have a „Stolperstein“ infront our house. Every time i see it, i just have to stop and pay respect. I‘m thankful to be priviliged that i know this won‘t happen to me. And im so sad that it did happen to someone that lived in the same House that i do today.
The reichs kristal nacht is a really tragic and sad event but interesting non the less when you are interestet in the second ww and I'd say the hight of antisemitism within public at the time. And I think that the fall of the berlin wall and the reichs kristal nacht are on the same date is kind of poetic. On one side a cruel regime broke people and property of people it saw unfit within society to separate them even further and on the other side a cruel regime was broken by the hands of many different people standing together for one another.
Thank you very much for this video and your heartwarming reaction. A few days ago, at november 9th we remembered not only the destruction of the Berlin Wall, which leads to german reunion, but especially the Kristallnacht. Here in my district there are many Stolpersteine, because we have one of the biggest synagogue here. At every Stolperstein has been placed a special candle ("Grablicht" or "Grabkerze") and this lights were really touching. We have to remember these cruel times, so they never will come back again. And by the way: Schwäbisch Hall is a very beautiful town with many medieval or lattice houses. My parents-in-law live in one of them, it has been build in 1725 - and the basements are even older.
Same thing here in Austria btw. It's ingrained in our culture to teach about and always remember the horrors of World War II - and that our country, our people, we were equally responsible for and complicit in it.
If it were in walls, someone would still complain. Apart from that, a memorial is not the same as a grave. It's strange that some people can't keep that apart. Many memorial plaques are embedded in floors. The project was and is much more realistic to implement on the ground, because most of the paths are public, so you only need a permit from the city. In walls, you would need permission from every single homeowner, which is totally unrealistic. Because of the bureaucracy (data protection, effort) but also because many homeowners do not want that. I'm glad that, except for Munich, everyone else is more rational on this topic. It is also important to mention that the Stolpersteine are donation-financed. And that not only Jews are commemorated, but all victims. Jews and other religious followers should not take over the discussion.
A common saying in germany is: Its not our fault what happened. But its our obligation to prevent such things from happening again.
Yes, as wise doctors said it once
The far right tries to make it about guilt, though, and wants to erase history, akin to American exceptionalism.
Is it really that common? In my generation at least (born 1980) most people are very aware of the importance of remembrance culture
Wear a musk and get v4c1neted, or you aren't allowed to do this and that and the other...
People have very obviously learned nothing, have they? Once again, mindlessly obeying a lying government.
This is also extremely valid in the current state of the world. Many Russians claim that "the west" is "russophobic", but the truth is, that most do not hate the common Russian, but the actions carried out by Russian leadership...
But we also look at these common Russians with expectation, because it is their obligation to prevent their leaders from turning the entire world into nuclear wastelands. Only they can change the mindset ruling their country. Putin is like Hitler with a 100x more destructive "toolbox"
The population of a country will always carry some sort of responsibility for the actions of their government, although they can't be blamed for a leader going insane. If their leader starts striving for violent world domination, it's time to say stop and do whatever it takes to change the fatal course.
The intention to put them on the Ground is: You need to bow your head to read them. So while reading you pay respect at the same Moment because you bow your head. These Ceremonies are very touching.
Why is it about respect at all? I thought it was about remembering. How can you respect someone for being killed? You can only mourn someone or remember someone who was killed. Respect is so weird in that sense, I honestly don't understand what respect has to do with it. Instead I have respect for the people who finance, put in and maintain the Stolpersteine.
Ato put them on the ground is a bit controversy because you can stand on it and walk over.
@@vomm Respect comes from the latin word respectio means looking back, observing etc. (wikipedia). To pay tribute or respect you bow your head. It has therefore a much deeper meaning than for being killed. And the respecthing came from the guy who started the Stolpersteine. Bowing your head as gratitude is very common in other parts of the world. "Den Diener machen" (to bow like a servant) might not being an american thing but from european traditions it's a huge big deal. We lower our head to gratitude someone else in front of us, we let our guard down, being not in charge to look the opposite in the eyes for a split second.
I agree with Heike.
It's of course also a sign of mourning to bow your head in front of a Stolperstein. But think why you should bow your head? It's originated as a sign of respect and trust towards someone who is higher than you.
And respect in this case also means respect towards that persons life. Even or especially if that person may not have been respected in life.
@@vomm what a weird thing to say. Respect has different meanings. It doesn't only mean to obey to someone's authority but also to acknowledge someone as a person with the same value and rights . Paying respect to people that our ancestors dehumanised, tortured and killed without reason is the least we can do .
Germany is definitely a role model when it comes to being honest about your past, admitting your mistakes and working on making things better. I really; really admire and respect Germany for that reason. Many other countries should take this as an example. The US, with Native Americans and slavery, France and the UK with their former colonies, Japan with their "comfort battalions" and experimentation on prisoners at Unit 731 during WW2 ... And so on. It's definitely not about feeling guilty for what our ancestors did. Not even about hating your own country. It's about making sure it never happens again. For a better future, we need to learn from our past and be honest about it.
To loose contact with that evil part of you, you need to be able to heal, not remembered time again and again. It only keeps you guilt bound.
@@andreaskonig3767 Sweeping dust under the carpet and turning a blind eye to that kind of horror never solved anything. Remembering allows education and education is the only key to make sure it never happens again. Only people with a very weird state of mind talk about guilt when it comes to being honest about History. That kind of comment says way more about you than you seem to realize.
@@almamater9566 You mean to keep those Germans bound in guilt? Or are you saying that Americans should do the same with their victims? There would not be enough stones on this planet. And if you talk history, please include ALL historical atrocities... for whosoever is without guilt may throw the first stone (ups, they're embedded in Germany's footpaths to keep reminding them for the sake of keeping those Germans fear and guilt bound).... And I am not only talking about America... however, they do it very cleverly. They call it defending their homeland (even though they didn't have to fight on their own ground, but it sounds good) But yes, go ahead and tell me what it is you think you know about me. I can tell you who you are: A person who has a limited view of these things. Go learn! You may be surprised.
@@andreaskonig3767 Once again you are just being extremely dishonest !!
Knowledge, education and honesty have nothing to do with guilt. Calling it guilt to try playing the victim just because you're a coward unable to face reality is sad but that's a you problem buddy !
The world doesn't revolve around you and remembering, honoring and respecting those who didn't survive that kind of atrocity is way more important than you self-centered discomfort. Not remembering or discussing these events on the other end would mean silencing the victims once again and in a way validating and normalizing what happened. The fact you can't understand that says a lot about you.
Including all atrocities ? Did you even read my first comment ? I talked about France the UK Japan and so on ... That's exactly what i did. Don't lecture anyone on knowledge when you can't even read. Live up to your own standards first. That's clearly not the case yet. What's wrong with you ? And when it comes about learning i think my PhD in History is already enough ... Guess who has a limited view on facts and History now ?
All i see here is a butt hurt brainwashed indoctrinated typical basic idiot that left school way too soon for their own good and prefers spending their time whining than facing facts and reality and working on becoming a better person. Can't you just accept once in a while that the conversation is not about you ? ... You are ridiculous and kinda disgusting tbh. Self criticism is hard, i get it but it's unfortunately the only way to grow and improve.
But since you talk about the US, considering what the country became in the last few years it is highly recommended and necessary to start doing some kind of self reflection. Open your eyes and face a mirror. It's high time. It's not even a democracy anymore and certainly not a country anybody could look up to.
We also have some dirt sweeped under the carpet. Our colonial history is far from being fully processed.
I think the Stolpersteine on the ground are really good, I‘ve noticed myself stoping and reading the stones/ thinking of the victims. That would never happen if they put it on the Wall...
Although I can understand why you could think that it would be disrespectful, but I think most Germans see it as a thing of respect and remembering ... :)
I would like to add, that if you see such a "stolperstein" on or in the ground and just stop without stepping on it, you show even more respect than to a plaque on a wall
@@Hirndille Yes, that's true. My mother even told me not to step on them when I first encountered them as a child, out of respect for the victims. And that's still in my mind so whenever I see them I avoid stepping on them and I think most people act the same.
we have sooo many people walking around cleaning those stones to keep them in shape not because they have to.. because they want to .
And the name is chosen well: you stumble upon them, during your everyday life, and remember that other people were deprived of their lives. Not like monuments, which are part of "high culture" - you see these while shopping or taking your kids to school. This form of the stones is used solely for this purpose, it makes them unique and even more powerful.
I have seen these walking the streets of Berlin. I think it makes a statement to place them in the ground. I mean isn't that where bodies are laid in the end? In the ground. Further the way they are placed interlocking with the cobblestones is a way of saying the people memories are interlocked in to the place they lived.
I am from Germany. And to be honest- I took the way Germany behaves with his mistakes for granted. When I went to America I was shocked how they glorify their past or just don’t acknowledge it. I feel like some people in the US don’t even know what their country has done in the past. When I was younger I thought every country does it like Germany. Because it was so normal to me to know about the past and to talk about it. Now I really respect it and in a weird kind of way I am proud of that.
AHA. Interesting.
@@andreaskonig3767 Thanks,
You are proud about the past of Germany?
@@cosiek5150 they are proud that Germany deals with its past mistakes, not of the mistakes themselves
I´m from Germany either and I have to admit that the whole dealing with it for not denying it, went a bit to early to far for me. I had to learn throughout a lot of classes every step of Hitler and his biography, I had to analyze his and his fellows speeches and other propaganda, I had to visit Dachau at age 16, where they were showing us real footage of the freeing of Dachau. As a very empathetic person, it nearly killed my soul to have to always be aware of that burden and also to have to see that footage at that age ( I was not grown to this at that point).
In my education we had to learn everything about Hitler´s arising at the age of 11/12 and also about the counter movement. We had to write exams about it. We had to read the Diary of Anne Frank which is an ego-perspective on the life under terror and hide and the part where you just losing the battle...I was too young to understand the full gravity of it, but I understood the pure evil.
For the following years it would be brought up every now and then in classes, like German class, history class, Ethics and so on....But I always felt torned about it because of the following and please hear me out on that:
The Nazi Regime took 6 Million Lives, round about and we are made aware of this til today, the Russian Regime killed under Stalin 30 Million people and no one talks about it (they should!), the US killed through it´s "Go West" movement mostly between 10 to 15 million native Americans (numbers can differ by the source). The US slaved another approximately 10 million Africans and no one talks about it by real, for the torture I had to go to as a child. It was traumatic for me. And I questioned my teachers, because there were so many examples of other cultures and why we had to go over and over and over it all the time, without considering the mistakes from other cultures and countries. And the response I was getting all the time was "because we did it and it is our duty to prevent this ever happen again in our name!"
I grew older and understand much more...about myself, about history...but I was feeling like before, it broke me, the thought about what people can do to each other broke my soul...and I was growing up more....
At this point in my life I was aware, that the Nazi´s not only did that to Jewish people but to gay/queer people also...and I was one of them...that came to my 16 year old mind sitting there in Dachau...feeling this creepy feeling when you´re surrounded by fear and death, I saw the footage and thought the whole time, if I was born just a few decades earlier this could have been me, the corpse staked on a pile...I could have been one of them, just because of the person I was and how I was born.
And yeah, it´s traumatic for me to this day! But I will never forget the burden we as Germans have to carry. I will never forget where fatalism can lead to and I will do everything I can in my lifespan to prevent this happening again!
And yeah, I think there are countries, especially the US that need to step up the plate and do some significant change in their education and recognition. It´s traumatic to face your past sometimes, but it prevents you from going this direction ever again, if you felt just a touch of it what this would mean...
I've actually met the artist doing the Stolpersteine twice: once when we put some in the ground in front of our old school and once when he did a project with my dad and his friends to honor victims from a specific deportation train.
He actually still lays most of the stones himself to ensure it's done in an honorable way.
As for them being on the ground that originally started because for signs on the houses you'd need permission of the owner of the house and not just of the city. But he specifically chose copper because that's being polished from the friction of people walking on it, so actually stepping on the stones honors the victims and makes their memory more readable. I think it's a very good symbol of them just being part of every day life and their memory being kept even by people that choose to be ignorant to it. Since so many people avoid stepping on them there are actually volunteers in many communities that polish the stones by hand regularly.
Thank you for the explanation :)
They also draw attention because when you step on them, you notice the difference immediately and look down...basically bowing your head for the victims in the process.
I think they are made of brass from the color. I once was in a city, maybe Saarbrücken?, where the stones were set in upside down. Means the brass was without inscriptions. Which I find strange if not ridiculous. Nobody is able to read the names as you cannot dig them out and turn them. It might have a symbolic reference of the fact that there were so many people affected. But it makes it less personal and more like a statistic. At least I have not understood what the purpose is and why it should be better than laying them in the more conventional way.
But perhaps those were placeholders for names to come? I really don't know because we were told that by a tourist guide.
Some homeowners were against it at the beginning because of the stumbling blocks. It would reduce the value of the house.
Not all homeowners, but some. The Stolpersteine have a high value for me.
Especially that the victims of this regime are remembered and . . . that the Germans today are still reminded of what happened in their name.
Because there are still the eternals of yesterday. They still don't see themselves as guilty today.
3 miles from where I live, I saw Stolpersteine in Goethestraße in Ottweiler and I was very touched. Some were liberated, were able to escape to a foreign country
and unfortunately some died in the camps. Berta Maas was a strong woman and I think She was a heroine. Berta Maas fought and survived.
@@V100-e5q Maybe they did just know that people where taken from that house but no one did know who it was so they set the brass blank.
Nothing but love for our German brothers, they are wonderful people!
Much love from Switzerland 🇨🇭😊❤🇩🇪
Love for our very neutral brother and sisters in switzerland 😂🇩🇪❤️🇨🇭
@@katii1997 Merci ❤
Thanks, love from the beautiful Saarland to the beautiful Switzerland
What? A Swiss, liking Germans? Are you sick? Na….. just kidding, I like Germans too, and we Swiss peeps can learn a lot of them. 😊
Didn’t know about the Stolpersteine until now, but in my opinion it’s an amazing way of remembering.
We should always remember our past, in order to not repeat mistakes from the past, and repeat great things that have been done.
If only, other, more powerful countries would do the same. And yes, I‘m looking at you, Russia, China and America!
@@The_real_Arovor We are not that far apart...in fact, internationally swiss people are portraied as more "spiessig" than we are ;)
In my school a Gymnasium in Germany, we integrated the Stolpersteine in the ground last summer with additional paintings from our art classes, music from our chorus and orchestra and historic information from our year 9 and 12 history classes. It was a really special and touching moment.
Before Corona each years 12th grade advanced history class went to the place where the synagoge stood and the students from certain parts of town reread the names of departured jews who lived there...
Die Stolpersteine hat Gunter Demnig entwickelt. Er mein Jugendfreund seit 1958. War mein Nachbar und Schulkamerad am Gymnasium. Anfangs wurde er für diese Idee angefeindet. Inzwischen ist er hoch geachtet.
@@winfriedmeier3699 Ich habe nicht von Gunter Demnig etwas gehört, aber jetzt werde ich zusehen das ich etwaa über ihn erfahren. Danke.
Starship beautiful !
@@winfriedmeier3699 Danke Winfried.
I live in Germany. My great grandfather also received a stumbling stones. I think it's very beautiful that Germany honor these people with these stones
I think the "Stolpersteine" are an unobtrusive but very powerful means of remembering history and conveying responsibility.
You're supposed to walk over them, but you dodge one or the other or stop to read the inscription. The passage becomes hesitant, one literally stumbles over history.
Other countries deal with dark history differently than we Germans do.
I saw a snippet of an interview with Tom Hanks the other day, in which he said he learned all about the Holocaust in school, but no one ever told him about the Tulsa race massacre. He seemed very upset at the way the US is handling its own dark history.
I heard very often that children and people in the US also don't go visit plantation homes and learn about slavery. I couldn't believe it bc it is such a major part of the history of that country. Everything they have today was built on the back of slaves!
Yes, germany does take it seriously. Other seem to cover it up and strike it from their history. Also all of this is important and helps to remember what facism does. And that shows also on a political scale.
There 5 Stolpersteine right in front of our House. A family with three children. The oldest son died in the age of 8 years old, the two girls aged 6 and 2.
My son is now 8 years old. And he knows about this stones and their history. I sadly can't change the past, but I can try to change the future.
Stay healthy.
My son was two years old when he first asked me about the Stolpersteine in our street. It's a great way to teach children about our history and also how to treat them with respect.
I was born 1960 in a small town in Germany and there were no jews in my class, or in the whole town. I learnt that there was a building called "the old synagoge" and I sometimes read in the newspaper that graves were destroyed in a jewish cemetry of the neighboring village. But until I grew up, nobody told me that this was not hundreds of years before, but that jews lived in our town until the war, just 15 years before I was born.
Then, in my 50s, I drove my father up a hill and he told me to whom the vineyards belonged. When he mentioned that one of them belonged to "Rotschilds" I was stunned and asked, that is a famous jewish name, did we have jews here? "Yes," he said, "Katharina was sitting next to me in my class." And after a moment: "I was not right what they did to her."
I love to have the stolpersteine now.
Your story made me cry.
In my hometown there's a plaque commemorating the place if the former synagogue, and they even managed to put a grammatical error into six words.
@@ThePixel1983 pictures or it didn't happen
Are we talking the bankers "Rotschild"?
@@SenpaiSchuda The bankers come from Frankfurt and our town is 2h away from Frankfurt. So some far relationship could be.
Yes, stepping on the Stolpersteine could be construed, with much malice, to be showing disrespect to the memory of the dead. But in contrast, most people are very aware of them and actively try NOT to step on them. In addition, if you stand in front of them to read them, you automatically bow your head, a bodily position of deference and respect. While raising your head to read a plaque mounted on a wall, especially higher on a wall, might actually be seen as disrespectful as you now don't bow to the dead anymore.
In addition, most people usually focus on the ground somewhere in front of them, not on walls, to search out potential dangers to where they might step. As such a stumbling stone is much more likely to be noticed than a plaque on a wall.
While I certainly don't disrespect this leader of the Jewish community in Munich, I still disagree with him on banning the stones in the ground for those reasons above.
Here in Hamburg, we have now around 6.400 "Stolpersteine" and I myself have donated/sponsored two of them.
I would also like to add, that almost every german student visits a "KZ-Gedenkstätte (KZ-Memorial)" once in their school career. It was a moving and humbling experience i will never forget!
I learned that from my relatives in Germany. It sometimes happens over here in Austria to. My school didn't do that, I know others did and I'm kind of jealous. Mainly because, while I'll never be able to fully understand what the people who these memorials were built for went through, I want to at least give them my respect and learn more about what the victims went through. I know from visiting museums that it's very different to learn about history while your surroundings showcase parts of what happened, than just learning about it in school or at home.
My class wanted to do this but unfortunaly Corona started so it fell out and we didn't went ☹️
Not true, only a few do it. Not many and absolutely not almost every. Thats why the Zentralrat der Juden in Germany always asks every now and then about making it mandatory for every school.
@@readingdino711 Maybe Austrians should learn about their past and their participation in the extinction of jewish people as well. It was NOT Germany alone, that just like that started the herassment and killing of jewish people. It was common all over Europe. Germany of course took it further than most other countries and made a killing machinerie out of it. But other countries participated. And nobody talks about that. It's a shame!
as a german I don't feel very patriotic but still... when he red the first sentences of his book I felt a strong chill and kinda started crying bc it made me really happy somehow
Same...
I don't think any german is patriotic. We might not hate our country but we're definetely indifferent. The only time some might be patriotic is during the football/soccer season. And really only those few.
Also Germany pre ww2 and post ww2 can’t really be called evil. It had a strong military culture thanks to Prussia but in and of itself that isn’t evil.
And ww1 wasn’t caused by Germany, all of Europe at the time was a powder keg waiting for a spark.
Hell, Germany can’t even exclusively be blamed for ww2. If it weren’t for the Allies (specifically France) wanting to blame Germany for everything that happened in ww1 and wanting to punish them as much as possible, the resentment and anger that allowed the NSDAP to rise would probably not have been there to such an extent.
@@MaticTheProto Thank you for this comment. I feel like most people just get taught that it was only the germans fault. I'm not denying that they did horrible things and were not innocent at all. I'm just happy that some people do know that there was already a small fire across all of europe that needed a small push to become uncontrollable-
@@chromium_ink yeah, sadly that part of history is mostly left out in history class.
Also, when you stop to read what ist written on the stones you lower your head in front of the memorial, paying respect to the victims
I live in the north of Germany and the city I work in has tons of Stolpersteine. It always makes me cry in a good way when people put down flowers and candles to remember what happened in the night of broken glass.
I also think that Germany is doing the whole education thing right. In class 9 and class 11 my school drove us to old labour camps which are now museums. Being there made you truely undestand how horrible it must have been back there. As someone who has Polish roots being there almost made me throw up, but I'm thankful for my school making sure that we really understood that the Holocaust was no joke.
I understand that. A good chance to practice forgiveness.
I'm Czech and we have these as well. Sometimes I walk through the city, making a point of noticing them. It's frightening how many there are. There's a main street I frequently walk. It's lined with old apartment buildings. There barely is an entryway without these stones in front of it, many have as much as six or eight. Must have been entire families. And I look at that house and wonder how many people lived there and that some of these huge houses must have ended up almost entirely empty. And with how this year has been going on, I notice the stones a lot.
When he mentioned that there are about 70000 of these stones around I imagined how many of them there needed to be if the real number of victims were to be represented. Your comment gives a good idea of that.
Actual in my city in Germany people come together like every year to clean the Stolpersteine .This way we keep them clean and shiny.People always look on the ground while walking.A shiny golden stone they recordnize at once .And most people stop then and read the names. And i also have seen that older people touched them.I asked one lady about it and she told me:They were our neighbours.When we were kids.We played together and i never forgot the night when they came to bring them away.so every time i come along here , its a bit like a gravestone you touch.
A lot of people dont try to step on them.I love that.Its very respectful. This victims got a name by this stones .They got their name back.Every year my city tries to find out more adresses where the victims lived and we place every year about 30-60 stones in the ground in a little ceremony .We dont know where their bodys are ,but we know where they lived... and we should NEVER forget about them.We teach our kids from early days on what this stones mean.
Because nobody wants the past to repeat again.THIS should NEVER happen again.
Today in Germany we are more than 40 nationalitys and all kinds of religions .We are living door by door...we are friends ..we are familys...we are HUMANS ... and we all should never forget that fact. Conflicts we should find a peaceful solution for ...on whole world. We should treat each other with respect. This stones are showing clearly what happens if respect is leaving a nation...when humans are going against each other by stupid reasons ...
Lg & tc
We actually have a Stolperstein infront of our school. Most students don‘t pay attention to it but I always try to not step on it, just to pay a little respect to the victims. It’s really sad what happened in our past but we can’t change it. We can just try to never let something like this happen again.
I share your views on the Stolpersteine, their placement on the ground is not disrespect, it raises attention.
If you don't know about the Kristallnacht, you should change that fact.
Kristallnacht is a Nazi euphemism and should'nt be used. The PC-term is "Reichsprogromnacht".
@@twinmama42 It's still the same thing.
Political correctness is overestimated.
where is the respect when you step on their names??? ....p.s. und was soll dein Nickname, war der Gäfgen nicht irgendsoein gestörter Kindermörder??
@@grundgesetzart.1463
Respect is a function of the brain, not the feet.
Nicht jeder versteckt sich hinter einem Nicknamen.
People NOT stepping on the stumbling stones causes it own problems btw.
Most people try not to step on them, which makes them build up patina and makes them unreadable and slippery after a while.
Only if people walk over them from time to time, they stay shiny and safe.
So some people argue that you MUST step on them to preserve them and history.
Yeah, there really are long and serious discussions about that topic alone.
my school just had a day every year where the studends volunteered to clean them
step on them to show that the dark history is a thing of the past that you move away from. But now and read them to show respect to those they are dedicated to.
Never ever I step on them. Better cleaning them from time to time.
Soon it's November 9th again - perhaps the perfect day to clean some of them in our neighborhood.
Just go out and clean some...
1. The book is a real recommendation. I've read it over the last weeks and still have the last chapter to read, but I can only recommend it to everybody who wants to have a look into the mindset of our country and people, politicians and public. It brought me a lot of insights and some bitter pills to swallow. The author is a British journalist who spent a big part of his working life in Germany.
2. The Stolpersteine are a powerful tool of memorial as they change the abstract number of people killed and tortured by the Nazis into individuals with personal fates. This may sound cynical but one victim (of anything) is a tragedy, thousands of victims are just a number in the news. And to read the victims' names, dates of birth, dates of deportation, and their fates is just so much more powerful than a number in a textbook.
3. I never stepped on a Stolperstein. They are set at places where a normal passer-by doesn't walk, but they are visible enough to stop and think about the humans behind the names.
Even if you accidentally step onto them, that shouldn't be taken as an insult, but as an accident. The intention makes the insult and if stepping onto them makes you realise the story of the people, who lived there and makes you empathise with them, this accident did more than most plaques on the wall do and should not be taken as an insult.
And if someone wants to insult them, they will do so anyway wether the names are inscribed on the ground or on the wall. The only thing the wall achieves it, is making it easier to ignore.
The controversy in Munich about Stolpersteine was very unfortunate. Yes, Charlotte Knobloch certainly is a very respected former leader of the German Jewish community and I think it really needs to be considered what someone like her says about the Stolpersteine. But on the other side in some of the cases discussed in Munich, the actual descendants/family of some of the victims who were fighting to be able to put Stolpersteine for their ancestors into the ground. I think it is good, to have a divers culture of commemoration and certainly Stolpersteine are not always a good solution, but I think, in the end, the word of the family members should count more.
I 'm german, I'm too young to have had anything to do with what happened in WWII and on top of that my parents are immigrants. Still, these memorials and stories make me cry. It's a real emotional connection you have, because you've been taught what happened to these people. How their lifes were destroyed. Having that empathy only makes us stronger and more resilient for the future, I think.
In Berlin and the cities surrounding it you find these stones in Front of every other house (and mostly in groups of whole families). Desensities somewhat but also tells you a lot about the scale of it all. Very scary stuff to have a look down the street sometimes and looking at all the shiny stones speckling the ground everywhere.
I actually really like the stumbling stones. I can understand that people might think stepping on it would be disrespectful. But anyone who finds these stones and wants to know who is immortalized on them bows to these stones to read the names on it, thus showing their respect again. You have to look at it from the point of view of the artist who came up with this idea
2:52 The text reads:
In the night from the 9th november to the 10th november 1938 on this spot, Haller nazis (nazis from Haller? don't know...) burned down cultural relics, furniture and books from the Jewish praying hall in the Obere Herrengasse 8 (street name, translates to upper gentlemen's alley 8)
"Haller" from Schwäbisch Hall. Just People from Schwäbisch Hall. Schwäbisch Hall translates in Swabian Hall, the Residents are often called "Haller".
@@SvenMl78 ah, okay, thanks! 😊
The city is Schwäbisch Hall, and the people from Hall are called: Haller
Since we're also putting plaques on the walls for every tiny occasion someone famous so much as glanced at that house, the stones in the ground are noticable even for people who last read "Mozart farted in the direction of this house in 1782" and promptly ignored all the other plaques about people who lead pretty nice lives.
Stumbling blocks are a silent reminder to fight for peace, freedom and humanity every day ✌️
Greetings from Germany 🌄✌️♥️
As a kid I noticed the Stolpersteine. I think I even asked my parents about them (can't really remember). This would never be the case if there's just a name on the wall. Because these stone in the ground are (way more) remarkable.
Yes. There is not much on the ground to look at, that would distract u from looking at this specific ones
Side-note, the steppingstones are placed before an entrance of where said people used to live (at least all that I’ve seen). You’re not walking into a cafe that that person used to go to, you’re walking into a cafe that used to be that person’s home. Which gives you a whole new perspective to think about.
We have stepping stones in Slovenia too. Just a few years ago they placed the ones for some of my family, there was a whole ceremony for it. It was really great.
I'm German and we have these Stolpersteine in our litte City as well. There are names from babies and children, who died a few days later after they were deported.Never, never forget and don't let hate rule the World. We're all brothers and sisters ❤
I always walk around the Stolpersteine and when I'm not in a terrible hurry I take a minute to read them and think about the people commemorated and how their lives were.
I dont see it as disrespectful that the Stolpersteine are on the ground. For one, they can be seen as a symbolic part of what Germany is built on, its foundation. So its rather fitting that people walk over them. Secondly, they are called tripping stones - and you dont tripp over something thats on a wall. That you "tripp" over them in a coincidental way just by walking, is the whole point of the things. And I guess its what the artist intended, otherwise he would have put them on walls to begin with.
Germany is not built on these unfortunate 12 years of our history. Do you know who financed Hitler in the beginning? Hint: it was not Germans. So there is that little fact, which some don't like to hear about.
Sorry, but your first "explanation" sounds really terrible if you think about it!
" For one, they can be seen as a symbolic part of what Germany is built on, its foundation" Can also be read/interpreted as Germany is built on fascism, WWII and the profits it generated with the holocaust.
@@usbxg3474 Yes, and that is a fact, at least for some part. The truth is not always pretty.
Great reaction. I guess this video explains the comments you got for your reaction to that soldiers song a while ago. That song (standing alone without any critical historical evaluation) triggered our "never again" awareness. That is an important part of todays german culture.
To the controversy about stepping on them: people bow their head when looking at them and the community goes down on their knees every year to clean them with little brushes. I think it‘s a beautiful tradition.
As somebody living in Berlin with many stepping stones in my area, I can attest that it is very much a living memorial. You have to consider them every day and think about the people, because you are aware that stepping on them could mean something. I'm a big fan of this and interacting with the stones, even if it is going out of your way by not stepping on them (or doing so and going: oops sorry) is meaningful.
Diese Geschichte darf nicht vergessen werden, sie ist allerdings manchmal extrem traurig, oft hilft nur eine Folge der Comedy 'Black Books' um mich wieder aufzumuntern 😑
You need to grow a pair of stones man
I think stumbling stones were put in the ground original for you to bow before them, since you have to bow down to read them.
Threre is also a practical reason for using Stolpersteine instead of plaques on a house. You don‘t have to ask the house owner who perhaps don‘t like any plaque on his house for whichever reason. But for a Stolperstein the artists has just to ask the local authorities of the community. And most of them if not all wouldn’t say no.
WatsApp now for more explanations, tips, advice and suggestions 👆👆
Thanks for the comments!!
I don't know, if someone already wrote it, but:
Some "federal states"/"Bundesländer" and/or Cities of Germany have apps, where you can look up where a "Stolperstein" is and get even more information about the person, who lived there and sometimes they include pictures of the person/persons 😊😊
Okay, this is nice. I live in Germany, but I didn’t know this.
We have those stones in the ground in Slovakia too, even in my city. Your idea about almost seeing those deceased people standing where you stand and being in their shoes is really great, maybe it would be a better idea if the stones were in form of a shoe sole, reminding their real steps. You could literally stand in their steps.
I completely agree with you. The ground plates are powerful! Because of the reasons you said. They make you feel like you can understand the position of the people. The wall plates are so easily overlooked.
Hey Ryan, your reaction to learn about these Stolpersteine is exactly what the artist wants you to do. Noticing them, starting to think about the story and history surrounding them, and yes, looking down you now your head. I think your reaction is the best example for what the artist‘s Intension is all about.
A truly horrific time right there, for you to notice, think about, and to be brought back to the present moment.
For sure, Germany is not perfect, and why should it be, we all need to move forward and aspire to be better than before.
When I look around, so many people everywhere follow along that idea of working on a better world. Lately it becomes a lot harder everywhere. Mostly that are just distractions, mixed into the real mess surrounding the war in Ukraine, that is more and more also effecting everyone.
It seems like the circle is closing , and it took only like 70-80 years.
So yes, these Stolpersteine may seem only a tiny piece that get overlooked easily, but the represent so much more.
Thanks for the video!
So far so good Ryan, but that is exactly the problem. It's ramming it down our throats as Germans. Ask yourself this question: How many of those, who were also in the concentration camps that were not yous got a Stolperstein? How many of those incarcerated during the war have been commemorated apart from yous? I tell you: NONE! The idea to have it made a Stolperstein is a complete different one: LEST WE FORGET! Nobody shall ever forget. Everyone should always be bound in guilt. Ever looked at it this way? Might be time to open up to a different view.
@@andreaskonig3767 the pure existence of these stones is not "ramming it down your throat".
@@gonzo2495 If you can't see it, I can't help you.
I love the Stumbling Stones as well
It makes you stop and take a look especially nowadays where many people look towards the ground because of their mobiles
To add to your point at 6:36:
you dont imagine them walking into that caffee
you imagine them being dragged out of that door
most of those buildings are still the same buildings as back then, so the probability that they stodd there last before being deported is pretty high
I really like your respectful approach to our history that affected so many people in the worst kind of ways. I am younger than these horrible events and also are my parents. But I feel the great responsibility to make sure that nothing like that will ever happen again. But still sometimes I do not know how. Please forgive that and please remain on our side.
Our grandma took us once to a few of these and we polished them together to pay respect
One overlooked aspect of the stumbling stones is - children! They're closer to the ground and can more often be found consciously looking.
Info signs at "adult viewing height" are outside their world.
Also when kids see something on the wall, but they can't yet read (or read very well), they usually won't ask anyone, because a lot of things is written on walls.
But some weird thing on the ground, that doesn't look or feel the same as the rest of ground is more likely to catch their attention and thus might lead them to ask their parents and depending on the parents learn a bit about our history (of course not the horrible details if they are still very young).
And a stumbling stone on the ground literally makes you stumble over it and thus is far more likely to make you recognise it, while a plate on the wall, unless you are actively looking for information, will almost always be ignored. The entire stepping on debate just seems weird to me, as it is also the intention of your action that is relevant. And if someone absolutely wants to step onto the name of a holocaust victim they will kick the wall to step on the name anyway, so it doesn't stop people from being assholes.
@@buecherdrache1 There's also the Hollywood Walk of Fame to be noted in that context, not to mention religious or generally symbolic cobblestone mosaics.
Time will tell where the connotation will be headed.
I am German..and I really love my country but because of all that we or my ancestors did, it is often very hard to be proud of Germany. I can't really say why but these two videos made me cry..Thank you
Thank you for this video. I am German and always interested what people from other countries notice when in Germany. The Stolpersteine are imo a fantastic reminder. In my small village there are quite some of them sind there is always someone who polishes them, so they look really shiny and golden, not like in the video, so the, really attract attention.
one can't change history. enjoy the positive aspects of your great nation, there are so many to be proud of.
I live in a small town in Germany but even here you can find about 20 "Stolpersteine".
Damn o.0 We have 0 here and i don't miss them in any way if i imagine that all the paople that aren't able to go fast b.c. they read stuff on the smartphone, would stand still to also read this stuff. There is no need for those things b.c. i can remember things without reading about them everywhere.
@@friendlyreptile9931 yeah, your opinion. Just accept you’re pretty alone with that opinion though.
@@marcd6897 I guess i'm not but even if, i'm totaly fine with that.
Just last week three of them have been installed in front of my home. There was a little ceremony where students read summaries of the people's biographies.
The house in Germany where i used to live was bombed during the war. As a reminder, such a “memorial” stone was visibly cemented in the center of the hallway during the reconstruction period. Each tenant of the house stepped respectfully aside of that stone and was automatically confronted with the past history of this place on a daily basis. As a Belgian i was always deeply touched by this sight. War never really has winners… what we’ve lost is something we all have in common… the love and affection for something or someone… It’s a very good thing to have such subtle reminders integrated in our lives in a very educational enlightening way… and undoubtedly for all subsequent generations.
But it has not changed ANY thing. Americans still get their soldiers primed for war. They are still killing willy nilly without ever thinking about it or flinching if their leader calls them to their 'duty'. Funny that. Wouldn't you rather have a society that says NO to war and not following orders or else? People that can see that war is futile and brings nothing but pain, in the shot as well as in the shooter. Both suffer. So whats the point? The men that call them into war are nothing but morons who want their agendas met. They don't care if we suffer this way or that. Otherwise we would have no more wars. And THAT would be commendable, but not a stone on the path. That is just to keep people guilt bound. And I have never found a guilty person a healthy person. They have to see shrinks and have phobias and other psychological ailments. Don't you agree?
@@andreaskonig3767 I can perfectly see where you’re getting at and yes you definitely have a point there. But this isn’t the topic of this vid. I merely stated my opinion upon given topic that stumbling stones are a great invention. Yes, it might evoke a certain sense of guilt in all Germans, no matter what age group. Even if the much younger generation had nothing to do with it, some would still feel addressed/ involved to a certain extent. None of us, normal people, want war. War is invented by the most rapacious and unscrupulous vultures who can’t get enough of power and money! Let’s take these stones as a silent and yet very visible reminder not to let the inhuman atrocities of a genocide to be forgotten, and not as a leverage to stir up feelings of guilt in the innocent/ uninvolved… as an incentive that this will never ever happen again. But that’s probably going to be the greatest fallacy of all… Mankind doesn’t ever learn from the past…
@@inezdebaue4077 thank you. I find these stones offensive. Not for selfish reasons, but simply as there is nobody else that has been remembered but one ethnic group. And all others seem forgotten. It hurts to even look at this, but more so, as my ancestors died during that time too. Grandpa has never been found. Nor are Germans even allowed to remember or march for their losses, but are being called names instead. THAT is the unfairness of it all. It makes one feel insignificant in comparison. Nobody bows for my or other peoples' ancestors to remember their likewise terrible deaths. This is not selfish or narcissistic or anything like that. This topic is deeper than most younger people know or care to know. It's dynamite. Still.
@@andreaskonig3767 I can exactly feel what you’re dealing with and i somewhat agree. Greetings from Germany.
Thank you for sharing this. I have not heard about stolpersteine until now. Such a beautiful respectful idea for a country.
Germany is impressing me so often lately with its examples.
You just need to make a reaction about Regensburg its whole old town is UNESCO world heritage. It's beautifull!
Here in Germany, there are some days at our shools, there are some students, that volunteered to brush and clean the "stolpersteine" or stumbling stones.
Austrian here. We also have those Stolpersteine over here and i think it can be a really powerful reminder. I remember back when i was in school, we even had an excursion one day just walking around the town and searching for these memorials.
You can find the Stolpersteine everywhere in the Netherland in my own town Heerlen too , I did see a online map with every warmonument on them in Europe .
It has the stolpersteine on it too
Ryan I really enjoy your videos , I've been living in Germany nearly 12 years now (originally u.k ) and you know you forget how special this place is because it becomes the norm , often when I watch you react I am reminded of my own reactions when I was new here and also makes me a little proud of my adopted country because it really is special.
1:25 Well, speaking of a unified Germany that is. 1870 The multitude of germanic states were forged into a single entity, the "2nd Reich" so to speak (first Reich was the holy roman empire but that's a complicated thing... and not really unified in sense of "one government above all").
But from a standpoint of language, civilisation or inhabitation... "germany" is over 1000 years old. I mean, america existed before the united states as well. What we call the US came to existence with the victory of independence... but that doesn't mean people who called themself "amreicans" did not exist beforehand.
One day, we were reading one of these stumbling stones when the door of the house was opened and an old woman came out. "Oh, you are interested in our stumbling stone", she said. "I was living on the other side of the road back then and I remember when the Gestapo came. It was early in the morning, very early. They did not want to have much fuss, obviously. Th girl living in this house was not a Jew, but a Roma, but that didn't make much of a difference to them. When the Gestapo ringed the bell, she tried to escape and ran to a small shed down the road, but they caught her. People were applauding from their windows. I was so furious back then. 'Don't you realize you might be the next?' I shouted. That made the applause stop, but I don't think anybody gave much thought about it. 50 years later, I bought the house and I'm living here since then. I was so happy when they placed the stumbling stone."
It was a very powerfull feeling to hear that story from a first hand witness. Sadly, not many of them are still alive and I don't think my children will ever experience such a moment as I did back then. The thing is: we were reading that specific stumbling stone because someone used it as a hint to a geocach-riddle. We see so many stumbling stones everywere, we stop reading them sooner or later. But that specific one infront of the door of one of the last living witnesses that is obviously eager to tell her story to strangers... I'm sure who ever made that geocache-riddle had done this on purpose, so that many more people could meet that lady and hear her story. And I'm very thankfull for that.
I’m British and i can definitely say Germany is a beautiful country to holiday in, great food great beer and fantastic architecture not to mention how nice the people are 👌.
These stepping stones are to be found in Vienna, too. In this city one guy is employed to go through them and keep them clean.
Great comments by you. Well done ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
the stolpersteine were supposed to be standing out the ground and make people stumble so they look down and read. (not literally make people fall but stand out enough to draw attention and then be read - a inconvenience to make people remember like the dark past they inform about)
hey Ryan, i now watched every video of yours. i want to say that its really refreshing to watch you react. i really like your perspective and open minded attitude. i think you should stream and react to videos live with your viewers!
We even have serveral of the Stolpersteine in our small town, our population is about 36,000 inhabitants. You have to know where they are, of course. Mainly they are in front of places where jewish people used to live in our small community before they either were forcefully hauled off to concentration camps or chose to flee the country. It's a very good and helpful way of not forgetting.
These memorial plates are now put in over 30 countries in Europe.
Every year on that specific date in November, a lot of people not only light candles near those stumbling stones, but they also clean them, polish them in order to pay our respects and to make sure the stones will last a long time
It is usually on the weekends before the 9th of November. Local clubs and the city councils organise these cleanups, so that the stumbling stones are not damaged while cleaning
Probably on the 9. November. Because of the Reichs Kistallnacht or simply Kristallnacht /"Nacht der langen Messer" (Night of the long knifes)
In that Night many Jewish people and political enemies of Hitler very killed and businesses and houses burnd. It's historical and masker wise comparable to the Sait Bartholomews Night in 1572 in Paris.
@@njschnieber definitely for the candles.
Commemorative events are held throughout the country on 9th November.
The cleaning often takes place the weekend before
I am from Austria and we were confronted with the crimes and cruelty from the past very soon. Teachers didn't only tell us what happened, we visited former "KZ's" , they showed us very disturbing pictures of corpses of human who were trrated like trash. We watched many historic documentations about the madness that was going on. Our teachers invited survivors and / or relavates of such to confront us, but also to make sure that we do understand, that the past of our country is very dark, but also made sure that we understand, that we have the chance to do it better and never let such horrible things happen again.
I think that is something that USA may want to pick up in respect of slavery and native americans..... Education. More education.
And the USA are the first nation which used the atomic bomb against zivil people - twice.
The video your are reacting to is from Schwäbisch-Hall 😊
I know this village an live in the near of Schwäbisch-Hall, this is cool 😎
Your interpretation about the "Stolpersteine" as a place, were these people stood is a very interesting and nice one 👍
Before Corona each years 12th grade advanced history class went to the place where the synagoge stood and the students from certain parts of town reread the names of departured jews who lived there...
By watching your videos I start to appreciate the country I live in ...... greetings from Germany 🤣
the first thing that comes to my mind is the term "Vergangenheitsbewältigung".
At my house you don't have to walk 500m to find a memorial to a synagogue that was burned down on Kristallnacht, including the names of victims who were from here. Hardly another 500 m further you will find the aforementioned "Stolpersteine", all in the inner city area. It's bad what the Nazis did and it's important that we remember it. But our current generation must not continue to feel guilty for what our ancestors did.
Lol I just subscribed 15 mins ago and now there is a vid. I can see some Stolpersteine and Nalf👀
We were in Emden for vacation this summer and stumbled over some of the Stolpersteine. And i was thinking the same as you. 80 years ago these people were standing right here where i am right now. It brings a differend feeling with it as just a simple sign on a wall that i would have ignored. You start to imagine what happed here and how they got deported.
A lot of the stumbling stones are around where the Synagogue once stood, east of the Delft. It‘s a humbling amount of names.
It was on the crossing of Neutorstraße/Westerbutvenne. Their were several stones.
...here I completely agree with Nalf and your perception Ryan - these stumbling stones are an excellent idea to deal with this topic and have nothing to do with "trampling with feet on it". Also in the place where I live I see these every day and I am glad that someone placed them...
On Nov 9 on Reichskristallnacht each year Stolpersteine are being cleaned in many cities
I’m swiss and we have some “Stolpersteine” as well. It’s sad but I always stop when I see one and read the inscription. It catches your eye and by taking time to read it you can pay your respect. I think they can also visualize just how many there were. When I was in Amsterdam there were some every other street. It just reminds you how many victims there were
What I also love about the stones being on the ground is the fact that to look at them you have to BOW DOWN and indirectly honor the victims that way.
A plaque on a wall could be hung up high enough that you have to look up and then you appear like you raise your nose over them as if they are *beneath* you.
Sadly in the last couple of years (Trump...) it seems that people, especially outside of Germany seem to forget history.
What use is it to be the "bad example" whos history should NEVER be repeated when suddenly this "bad" is considered GOOD by certain people (right wing extremists) all over the world ?
In the village where I grew up, there is a concentration camp cemetery (Dachau Überlingen field station). Every year, a different school class would take care of the graves, unfortunately also removing graffiti.
The major advantage of the stumbling stones are that they are so close to where the gaze of children is so often going.
Walking to your city with your 6-year old, and having to explain to her, why there is the name of another child etched into such a stone, a child that never had the chance to grow up...
NALF (Nick) was a film student before becoming a football player in Germany, hence the very cinematic videos he does. He recently premiered his movie about football in Germany called Unicorn Town, which is the team he plays on. It's worth a look.
As for the Stolpersteine, you can find them dotted all over and they are a sobering reminder of what happened during the Holocaust. They also initiate a moment of reflection, because you're standing where they once stood and that brings the reality into focus like few other historical markers do.
american football, not football
@@P._Nisbroch Fair point.
This is kinda related to the video - I'd love to see you react to Rammstein's music video 'Deutschland' (I know you've seen them before but honestly this isn't comparable with that one live performance). It's an incredible music video, one of the best I've ever seen and it deals with Germanys history and the relationship that the artists feel to their country. As long as you look at the translated lyrics (please that's important) and regard the material with an openness for interpretation it's a really cool experience.
I, as a 20 year old German, find it very sad and disgusting that I am called a "Nazi".
Every time when I play in an open lobby with a chat and I say I'm German.... They say that. Sometimes they leave, sometimes that say what disgusting things "I" did and that I should be ashamed.
And as a person who is very much against all the things that happened and against war, weapons, a military (if no one has a military there is no war. Theoretically). I am against discrimination and I am ashamed of the older generations that are resist or not respectfully to others, German or not.
America has a much larger problem with rasism and violence etc. But yet I am the Nazi in the situation because of where I am from.
This is a problem and it needs to change.
Maybe it's the lack of unbias education... What I mean is that every country teaches from their prospective, and as one of the countrys that ended the war you teach your heroism and simply say all Germans are bad. This is exsaturated I know... But we learn about the bad, and the good. About the people that had Jewish people in their houses in secret, who helped those flee, who gave their live because they were against the Regime... Even back then there where people who were against it and protested and rather died then be a part of this.
So here is my request:
Please stop saying to us that we are them. Because we are not. I was born in diffrent times and I do not support any of this bullshit. Let the past die, but not repeat.
We are different people than back there who lived in those times. So please be respectful to me as long as I'm respectfully of you.
I could call you all kinds of things, but i don't. Because I don't know who you are. Or are all Americans indian people killer. Or rasist pigs and black people murdere. No they are not.
Thanks for the info Ryan, I came across your Australian channel first as an Australian. But this is fascinating to me because my Dad was from Dresden, Germany. He grew up during WW2 - came out to Australia somehow to start a new life, sadly he was so afraid of authority figures he didn't trust the Drs trying to treat him for hypertension and stroke. In the end the strokes took his ability to work as a cabinet maker away, so he no longer saw his value and decided to suicide when I was about 5yrs old.
I don't know my families history on his side and may never know, but now I wonder if there is a stumbling stone out there somewhere with a link to the Weber surname? I like to think it would sooth his soul to know that modern day Germany is a much,much better culture now.
Thank you again Ryan.
Hey when your father was German and came from Dresden there are organisations which try to help to find information about your family background. Do you know where exactly he was from? With his birthdate you could start in the churches to find information about your father's background
@Belinda Weber
There are also the "registry offices" and the police registration offices, as well as the "German Red Cross", which keeps lists of addresses, the church records could also help. Good luck !
I am sorry about your father may he rest in peace do you know the story from 13.02-15.02.1945 there were also air raids on Dresden where thousands died from the phosphorus bombs if you saw the film it was hell the bodys burning from phoshorus also as they jump into the river Elbe the bodys are burning undaneath the old ones people suffered all their lives.
@@blondkatze3547 My mum was two weeks old at the time, and as she had a little lung infection, she and my grandma were sent to a clinic on a mountain to help her recover. My grandma later told my mum that they could see the sky getting all red in the east during the night.
They lived in Western Thuringia.
It must have been horrifying.
Yes it was horrfying also the bombing of Hamburg(Firestorm) Dresden (Phoshore -bombs) Swinemünde etc. Never ever war again. @@roesi1985
Btw, the artist who puts these stones into the ground says that walking over them polishes them and makes them shinier. So while it might seem disrespectful, it actually helps keep history visible.
I’m german, in nearly every older roads you have “Stolpersteine”.
In my city in Germany it's a tradition to clean some Stolpersteine at january 27 (in Germany it's a day for commemorating the Holocaust). I think this is also a really strong gesture.
We have these stumbling stones in my hometown aswell..
I think they are a good Idea as memorials.
The guy explaining the stumbling stones basically, well, explained it.
You have to stop and look at them closely.
Coming across a cluster of Stolpersteine, realizing it‘s a family of five, all with „murdered in Theresienstadt“ written down as their fate.. absolutely tears your heart out.
The winners write the history. Rheinwiesenlager! We never forget too.
150 years as a nation, before there were like different German states like Bavaria, Prussia etc. Yeah I think the Stolpersteine are easier recognizable too. If you walk over them shouldn't be a sign of disrespect, unless you think that way
I have a „Stolperstein“ infront our house. Every time i see it, i just have to stop and pay respect. I‘m thankful to be priviliged that i know this won‘t happen to me. And im so sad that it did happen to someone that lived in the same House that i do today.
The reichs kristal nacht is a really tragic and sad event but interesting non the less when you are interestet in the second ww and I'd say the hight of antisemitism within public at the time. And I think that the fall of the berlin wall and the reichs kristal nacht are on the same date is kind of poetic. On one side a cruel regime broke people and property of people it saw unfit within society to separate them even further and on the other side a cruel regime was broken by the hands of many different people standing together for one another.
Thank you very much for this video and your heartwarming reaction. A few days ago, at november 9th we remembered not only the destruction of the Berlin Wall, which leads to german reunion, but especially the Kristallnacht. Here in my district there are many Stolpersteine, because we have one of the biggest synagogue here. At every Stolperstein has been placed a special candle ("Grablicht" or "Grabkerze") and this lights were really touching. We have to remember these cruel times, so they never will come back again. And by the way: Schwäbisch Hall is a very beautiful town with many medieval or lattice houses. My parents-in-law live in one of them, it has been build in 1725 - and the basements are even older.
We got them to in the Nederlands. ❣
Same thing here in Austria btw. It's ingrained in our culture to teach about and always remember the horrors of World War II - and that our country, our people, we were equally responsible for and complicit in it.
If it were in walls, someone would still complain. Apart from that, a memorial is not the same as a grave. It's strange that some people can't keep that apart. Many memorial plaques are embedded in floors. The project was and is much more realistic to implement on the ground, because most of the paths are public, so you only need a permit from the city. In walls, you would need permission from every single homeowner, which is totally unrealistic. Because of the bureaucracy (data protection, effort) but also because many homeowners do not want that. I'm glad that, except for Munich, everyone else is more rational on this topic. It is also important to mention that the Stolpersteine are donation-financed. And that not only Jews are commemorated, but all victims. Jews and other religious followers should not take over the discussion.
Thanks man, I am a german guy and even in my small city are those „Stolpersteine“