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The "stumbling blocks" are small brass plates mounted on concrete cubes embedded in the pavement in front of homes of those who perished in the Holocaust. The plates bear the name of the victim and some information about the victim's life.
The blocks are the brainchild of the German artists Günther Demnig, who said they "allow remembrance to take place where ostracism began - in the last place of residence."
Demnig intends the blocks to preserve the memory of all of the Nazis' victims, including Jews, Gypsies, political protestors, Jehovah's Witnesses and others.
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Uta Franke, who coordinates the Stumbling Stone project for Demnig, said at the placing of the first stones in Budapest on Friday that "The Holocaust is so long past, that it now interests nobody," but "we do not believe that we have memorialised enough those many millions of victims of the Nazis."
Demnig told culture.hu that his project has met with opposition in some cities. One German took Demnig to court for placing a Stumbling Block which, the homeowner argued, reduced the value of the property by EUR 100,000. Only one city has categorically refused to allow the Stumbling Blocks: Munich. The city's mayor has said Munich has done enough for the victims of the holocaust.
Demnig noted that the many young people he works with are incapable of grasping the idea of several hundred thousand or a million people. In the same way, they are incapable of comprehending the death of six million - "the death of six million people: a fact which is incomprehensible, inhuman and cannot be grasped."
On Friday, blocks were laid at Ráday utca 5, the former home of Béla Rónai; at Ráday utca 25, the last home of Oszkár Weisz, a fabric seller; and at Ráday utca 31/b, the former home of Imre Pollák, a spice dealer.
The Stumbling Block project in Hungary is being organised by the Berlin-based psychologist Agnes Berger, who has spent years researching the impact of collective remembrance of people's identities, and the Bipolar Programme for German-Hungarian Cultural Cooperation, a Federal Cultural Foundation initiative designed to give new impetus to Hungarian-German relations. Bipolar will pay for the placement of the first 50 blocks.
An exhibition of Demnig's earlier work on the Stumbling Block project has opened in the 2B Gallery at Ráday utca 47.
Author: Valaczkay Gabriella
