German city’s memorial stones for Nazi victims are stolen on October 7 anniversary – The Forward

Three of the ten Stolpersteine, or stumbling stones, commemorating Jews murdered by the Nazis that appeared in Zeitz, Germany, before being stolen on October 7, 2024. (Courtesy of Sebastian Striegel)

(JTA) – Ten stones commemorating the victims of the Holocaust in a German city went missing Monday, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.

Residents of the eastern German town of Zeitz woke up to find that all of the town’s ‘stumbling stones’, called ‘Stolpersteine’ in German, had been driven out and stolen. The copper plates were placed between the cobblestones in front of the houses where Jews lived before the Nazis deported and murdered them.

Stumbling stones like the one in Zeitz have been placed throughout Europe and serve as memorials to Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis, listing their names, dates of birth and what is known about their fate – including their arrests, deportation to concentration camps and their dead.

In November 2023, weeks after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, four stumbling stones marking the homes of Jews in Rome were defaced with black paint or burned.

The stones stolen from Zeitz were placed at various locations in the city, which has just over 30,000 inhabitants. They commemorated the lives of Siegfried Fürst; Bertha Mendelsohn, born Bachmann; Emma Esther Mendelsohn, born Bachmann; Siegfried Mendelsohn; Dr. Gustav Flörsheim; Hilda Flörsheim, born Hamburger; Ingeborg Flörsheim; Auguste Lewy, born Hesse; Herman Blumenthal; and Lydia Blumenthal, nee Weissmann.

The city of Zeitz and the Stolpersteine ​​​​for Zeitz initiative have organized a fundraising campaign to replace the stumbling stones and have planned a memorial march for October 19 that will pass all the locations of the stolen stones.

Zeitz officials reacted with horror to the missing stones. Götz Ulrich, the provincial governor, called the crime “inexcusable and never excusable” in a statement on X on Tuesday. “Whoever did this also wants to rip the #Holocaust out of our #CultureofRemembrance,” he wrote.

Zeitz Mayor Kathrin Weber said, taking into account the date of the vandalism, she thought it was clearly “politically motivated” and called it “an attack on our democracy.”

Green Party MP Sebastian Striegel also posted images of places where the stumbling blocks were ripped out of the ground. In collaboration with the Zeitz Alliance for Diversity and Democracy and the Stolpersteine ​​​​for Zeitz initiative, Striegel said he is offering a reward of 1,000 euros for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators and the return of the stones.

The federal police have taken over the investigation to track down those responsible.

As in other parts of East Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany party has become increasingly popular in Zeitz. The AfD won the most seats of all individual parties in the municipal council in the June municipal elections, with almost 30% of the votes. The party’s rise has spread fear among German Jews.