Stumbling blocks in Austria

The first laid in Austria pitfalls of Gunter Demnig , Sankt Georgen bei Salzburg 1997

The stumbling blocks, memorial stones and memorial stones in Austria are manufactured and laid on the one hand by the artist Gunter Demnig , on the other hand by five Viennese initiatives and one from St. Pölten.

concept

The commemorative plaques, which are mostly embedded in the sidewalks and also attached to house facades in Vienna, commemorate “at least 110,000 Austrians” who “fell victim to persecution by the National Socialist regime” - they became Jews, Roma and Sinti , homosexuals or because of of their mental or physical handicaps, "they died because of their resistance activities or because they did not conform to the norms of the Nazi state".

Demnig's stumbling blocks have so far been laid in six federal states, for the first time in 1997 on the initiative of Andreas Maislinger in Sankt Georgen near Salzburg . The then mayor of St. Georgen, Friedrich Amerhauser, was the first mayor in the world to issue an official permit for the laying of stumbling blocks.

So far, Gunter Demnig has laid stumbling blocks in six Austrian federal states:

• 

  Carinthia
  24 stumbling blocks
• 

  Lower Austria
  at least 171 stumbling blocks
• 

  Upper Austria
  30 stumbling blocks
• 

  Salzburg
  452 stumbling blocks
• 

  Styria
  at least 100 stumbling blocks
• 

  Vorarlberg
  16 stumbling blocks

In Vienna, no stumbling blocks have been laid by Demnig so far, but the five initiatives Stones of Remembrance , Remembrance for the Future , Stones of Remembrance , Stones of Remembrance Josefstadt and Stones of Remembrance in Liesing share the task of remembrance work. Demnig himself sees the Vienna Stones of Memory as plagiarism .

In the federal state of Burgenland and in four districts of Vienna ( Simmering , Meidling , Hietzing and Donaustadt ), no stone stumbling blocks or memorial stones are known to have been laid.

Carinthia

Demnig lays a stumbling block in Klagenfurt

→ Main article : List of stumbling blocks in Carinthia

The Stolpersteine ​​in Klagenfurt are mainly dedicated to citizens who were attributed Jewish origins by the National Socialists, as well as resistance fighters of socialist and communist provenance. In addition, a stone was laid for a psychiatric patient who was killed in the Hartheim killing center . For the sole acknowledged Carinthian Slovenes , Anton case were (4 July 2014) two stumbling blocks, one in German and published an in Slovenian.

Carinthia	First laying	Number of stumbling blocks	last relocation / receipts	photos	list
Klagenfurt am Wörthersee	March 25, 2012	39	5th August 2018

Lower Austria

→ Main article : List of stumbling blocks in Lower Austria

Upper Austria

→ Main article : List of stumbling blocks in Upper Austria

The relocations in the Braunau am Inn district were based on research and initiatives by historians Florian Schwanninger and Andreas Maislinger . What is striking about the distribution of the groups of victims in the case of Upper Austria is that only seven of the 31 stones laid concern the largest group of victims, people of Jewish faith or origin: three Jewish women from Wels and four members of the Baumann family in Aigen im Mühlkreis . In addition, victims for political reasons, a number of murdered Roma and Sinti , a Jehovah's Witness and three representatives of the Catholic resistance were honored, including Franz Jägerstätter , who was later beatified .

One of the laid stones - the only one from St. Johann am Walde - has not been able to be found since August 2015 for reasons that are not clear.

No stumbling blocks were laid in the state capital Linz. In 2019, a jury decided in favor of a stele with bell buttons.

Upper Austria	First laying	Number of stumbling blocks	last relocation / receipts	photos	list
Aigen-Schlägl	April 21, 2013	4th	April 21, 2013
Altheim	August 11, 2006	1	August 11, 2006
Braunau am Inn	August 11, 2006	4th	August 11, 2006
Hacking book	August 11, 2006	1	August 11, 2006
Stronghold-oh	August 11, 2006	1	August 11, 2006
Maria Schmolln	August 12, 2006	1	August 12, 2006
St. Johann am Walde	August 12, 2006	1	August 12, 2006
St. Radegund	August 11, 2006	1	August 11, 2006
St. Veit im Innkreis	August 12, 2006	1	August 12, 2006
catfish	August 14, 2008	6th	August 14, 2008
Weng in the inner circle	July 17, 2010	1	July 17, 2010
Weyer	0July 2, 2011	8th	July 2, 2011

Linz - stele from 2019

On November 22nd, 2019 the jury's decision from Linz was for a stele, 1.5 m high and 35 cm wide, with names, dates and bell buttons on the right, based on the design of the artist Andreas Strauss, as memorials announced, which are to be set up at 20 residential addresses. Strauss lives and works in Ottensheim and Vienna. Until 2004 he studied in the metal class with Helmuth Gsöllpointner in Linz.

Salzburg

→ Main article : Stumbling blocks in the state of Salzburg

Styria

→ Main article : List of stumbling blocks in Styria

In Graz, the association for memorial culture operates the laying of stumbling blocks by Demnig. The association was founded at the end of 2012 by Sabine Maurer (chairwoman of the Graz Committee for Christian-Jewish Cooperation) and Daniela Grabe (local councilor, Greens) and operates a website that documents the personal history of those affected in text and the relocations with photos.

The first laying took place on July 27, 2013, further ones also on a July day in the following years 2014 and 2015. The laying is carried out in agreement and usually with structural preparation by the public road maintenance authority by opening the road surface, i.e. cutting or drilling in asphalt concrete or a paving slab or removing smaller paving stones. A separate stone is laid for each person. The stones of a pair of parents are usually next to each other in the reading direction, those of children below. At one address, the stones were grouped accordingly for 2 families with a total of 8 affected people. The reading direction of the stones is so that the reader stands facing the house or in a walking direction on the sidewalk.

In February 2015, blue-green discolorations were found on and next to several of the copper-containing brass plates of the stones. This color is typical of copper ions and salts. The cause was discussed in the media as a chemical attack by road salt ( sodium chloride , rarely calcium chloride ) and acid attack with vandalism intent, the police took samples, cleaned and investigated.

Styria	First laying	Number of stumbling blocks	last relocation / receipts	photos	list
Graz	July 27, 2013	94	August 16, 2016 + June 29, 2018.

One stone (for Josef Scharfstein, from 2016) of these 94 was lost in the course of construction work (as of January 12, 2017) and should be relocated on January 27, 2017.

Lettering on the sidewalk

Another art object from 2013, on the 75th anniversary of the November pogroms , conveys Nazi-motivated violence on the sidewalks in Graz, namely the attack on Rabbi David Herzog , who was taken from his apartment by young men in 1938 when he was 70 years old and brought to the burning synagogue was driven and abused in the process. On this very path along the sidewalks of Radetzkystraße and -brücke, Brückenkopfgasse and Griesplatz, the artist Catrin Bolt painted a tape of black Helvetica capital letters about 15 cm high over several hundred meters, which when walking along - in the direction of writing - to read his personal Report invites. A smoother grasp of the content of the rabbi's words is made possible by rolling on inline skates; in this case, too, the head should be tilted slightly. Since the lettering is closer to house walls or the sidewalk edges on the roadside, it is less subject to abrasion from the shoes of people walking and has remained largely legible for more than 2 years. In 2015 it was decided not to freshen up the temporary project of art in public space by repainting. As of October 2018, only smaller passages of the text have been preserved.

Tyrol

→ Main article : List of stumbling blocks in Tyrol

A stumbling block was laid for the first time in Tyrol on September 20, 2019. In Zell am Ziller he commemorates the principal school director Hans Vogl, who was executed as a resistance fighter on June 30, 1944. The laying of a stumbling block intended by the initiators for Vogl's widow was prevented by the municipal council with the votes of the ÖVP and FPÖ MPs.

Vorarlberg

→ Main article : List of stumbling blocks in Vorarlberg

The six stumbling blocks that were laid in the Bregenzerwald community of Lingenau in 2011 are dedicated to the victims of child euthanasia and the T4 campaign , the targeted murder of mentally or physically disabled adults by the Nazi regime . The ages of the victims ranged from Maria Rosa Bechter , who was not yet 8 years old, to Anna Brugger, who was 82 years old .

The heyday of the Jewish community in Hohenems was in the first half of the 19th century. At its peak, the community counts 564 people. Due to the December constitution in 1867, there was a strong emigration to neighboring cities and towns and in 1935 the Jewish community only had 35 members. After the annexation of Austria in 1938 there was a radical expropriation of all property, land and houses of people of Jewish origin and the physical extermination of all Jews who remained in Hohenems. Nine stumbling blocks have been a reminder of this since 2014.

Vorarlberg	First laying	Number of stumbling blocks	last relocation / receipts	photos	list
Hohenems	June 30, 2014	9	June 30, 2014
Lingenau	July 10, 2011	6th	July 10, 2011

Vienna

Memorial stone in the Brigittenauer Lände

All five initiatives Vienna remembrance and memorials to the victims of the Nazi regime , although based on the concept of the stumbling blocks of Gunter Demnig , but reject the notion unison stumbling blocks off. Initiator Kilian Franer: “We have no stumbling blocks in our district. Rather, it is important to us that nobody stumbles because we want to make our district accessible . I already know that the expression is meant metaphorically, but we still reject it. ”The Vienna Stones are called Stones of Remembrance , Stones of Remembrance or Remembrance for the Future . They are not only placed in the sidewalk, but in individual cases - if they are Approval of the house ownership was available - also as blackboards on the facade.

Gunter Demnig in 2012: “Vienna wanted us to negotiate with the homeowners, which of course doesn't work. In Vienna, too, the pavement belongs to the city. A woman then took the initiative herself and agreed with the district head that stumbling blocks would be placed in central places. I didn't go along with that. It's now called "Remembrance Road", but that's a very different concept. In addition, there are milled stones, which is absolutely not possible for me. Factory work is far too close to the machinery of extermination. The stones must be made by hand. But we leave it that way now. Everyone else in Austria wants my stones, except in Vienna. "

The five Viennese associations that are laying memorial stones in Vienna are:

• Remembering for the future , memorial stones in Vienna-Mariahilf
• Stones of Remembrance , memorial stones in Vienna-Leopoldstadt and in a number of other Viennese districts
• Stones of Remembrance in Liesing , memorial stones in Vienna-Liesing
• Stones of Remembrance Josefstadt , memorial stones in Vienna-Josefstadt
• Stones of remembrance , memorial stones in Vienna-Landstrasse and in other districts of Vienna

district	B no.	First laying	Number of stones and tablets	Number of victims	last relocation / receipt	photos	list
Vienna Inner City	1	July 2, 2009	21st	56	June 13, 2014
Vienna-Leopoldstadt	2	?	184	around 1,140
Vienna-Landstrasse	3	November 9, 2008	76	around 1,200	18th June 2017
Vienna-Wieden	4th	April 27, 2011	11	24	5th November 2015
Vienna-Margareten	5	April 24, 2011	3	9	April 29, 2013
Vienna-Mariahilf	6th	?	around 700
Vienna new building	7th	October 30, 2009	11	26th	3rd June 2014
Vienna-Josefstadt	8th	?	unknown
Vienna-Alsergrund	9	May 4, 2008	44	137	September 21, 2014
Vienna favorites	10	May 8, 2009	10	25th	May 20, 2014
Vienna-Penzing	14th	June 3, 2011	1	3	June 3, 2011
Vienna-Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus	15th	October 11, 2010	4th	12	April 24, 2014
Vienna-Ottakring	16	May 7, 2008	1	2	May 7, 2008
Vienna-Hernals	17th	October 12, 2012	3	24	October 12, 2012
Vienna-Währing	18th	May 4, 2011	7th	16	April 25, 2013
Vienna-Döbling	19th	September 2009	5	12	September 12, 2014
Vienna-Brigittenau	20th	October 28, 2008	47		October 24, 2014
Vienna-Floridsdorf	21st	17th May 2014	2	3	17th May 2014
Vienna-Liesing	23	November 9, 2013	42	69	19th November 2017

Blackboard in Köstlergasse 11

In the Viennese districts 11 to 13 and 22, no memorial stones have been laid so far.

See also

• List of places with stumbling blocks

Web links

Commons : Stumbling blocks, memorial stones and memorial stones in Austria  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Stumbling blocks , official website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance : The names of the Austrian victims of political persecution by the Nazi regime recorded for the first time , accessed on May 12, 2015
2. ↑ Stumbling stone laying on August 5, 2018
3. ↑ Stele with name and bell button orf.at, November 22, 2019, accessed November 22, 2019.
4. ^ Graz: "Stumbling blocks" remind of victims of National Socialism , diepresse.com, July 29, 2013, accessed January 27, 2016.
5. ^ Nazi memorial stones damaged in Graz , orf.at, February 13, 2015, accessed January 27, 2016.
6. ↑ Vandalism? Whirl around memorial stones for Nazi victims , kleinezeitung.at, February 12, 2015, accessed January 27, 2016.
7. ^ Stolpersteine ​​in Graz Third stumbling stone laying. In: www.stolpersteine-graz.at. Retrieved January 28, 2016 . 
8. ↑ Writing book as a memorial for Rabbi David Herzog , mein district.at, October 29, 2013, accessed January 27, 2016. - Video (07:45)
9. ↑ Jacqueline Winkler: History is made visible again , annenpost.at, November 7, 2013, accessed January 27, 2016. - Map.
10. ↑ Steffen Arora: Zell am Ziller receives Tyrol's first stumbling block and prevents the second. In: derstandard.at . September 21, 2019, accessed September 21, 2019.
11. ↑ hohenems.at: "stumbling blocks" remember the future of the Jewish victims of the Nazi era
12. ↑ Stolpersteine ​​laying in Lingenau , accessed on June 21, 2016.
13. ↑ Bernadette Conrad: Interview with Gunter Demnig Wiener Zeitung , June 8, 2012.
14. ↑ www.steinedererinnerung.net
15. ↑ Stones of Remembrance
16. ↑ Remembering for the future
17. ↑ www.steinedererinnerung.net
18. ^ Stones of Remembrance in Liesing