stumbling blocks

Art and culture

stumbling blocks

Stumbling blocks in the community of Konz

The Cologne artist Gunter Demnig has been sinking stumbling blocks into streets and paths for almost 20 years. The square brass plaques with rounded corners and edges are inscribed with letters hammered in by hand using hammers and punches and are supported by a cast concrete cube with an edge length of 96 × 96 and a height of 100 millimeters.

He wants to remember the victims of the Nazi regime. The names of the victims, their year of birth, the year of deportation and the date and place of their murder are engraved on a brass plate on the 10x10x10 cm stones.

They are moved to the last place of residence of the victims, where they once peacefully had their place in life.

Gunther Demnig

Stumbling blocks in Konzer Martinstrasse

Since October 28, 2008, there have also been stumbling blocks in front of house no. 17 on Martinstrasse in Konz. They were moved in memory of the two sisters Marianne and Mathilde Levy.

Until they fled and were subsequently deported in 1938, they both lived at Kirchstrasse 4 in Konz. The house was demolished after the war and the property was integrated into the extended area for the new building at number 17 in today's Martinstraße.

The Konzer stumbling blocks were sponsored by a local resident.

More information about the Levy family can be found here.

Konz-Oberemmel: stumbling blocks laid in Brotstrasse

On November 20th, 2007 in Brotstr. 3 in the district of Oberemmel to commemorate the Herrmann family, who lived there until 1938.
Jakob Herrmann and his wife Sophie, née Lorig, fled to the Lot et Garonne department in France together with their sons Walter and Siegfried.
On September 9, 1942, the Herrmann family was released from the Casseneuil/Dépt. Lot et Garonne first deported to Drancy near Paris and from there to Auschwitz.
There the married couple Jakob and Sophie Herrmann and their son Walter died.
Her son Siegfried Herrmann, born in 1925, survived the Holocaust and now lives in the USA.




The fate of the Meyer family from Wiltingen




Around 1815 Isaak Mayer moved to Wiltingen from neighboring Oberemmel. The family and their descendants lived in the Saar community for five generations. Around 1880 the number of Jewish citizens reached a high of 21.
Julius Meyer, born in Wiltingen in 1880, married Berta Kallmann from Irrel in 1913. Julius, called "Schmul", ran cattle trade full-time.



The former Meyer house
in Wiltingen - almost unchanged -

Edmund Meyer and his family
in front of his parents' house in Wiltingen