The brass-covered cobblestone blocks bear the names of victims of Nazi persecution and are laid into sidewalks, often outside their former homes. The center-right party of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has caused consternation among Holocaust survivors and political activists after joining the far-right AfD in voting to block new memorial stones commemorating victims of Nazi oppression in an eastern German town. 'Stolpersteine' are concrete cubes topped with a brass plaque bearing the names of Holocaust victims and others who suffered persecution under the Nazi regime. The stones are embedded in sidewalks, often outside the victims' former homes. They were the brainchild of artist Gunter Demnig, who initiated the project in the early 1990s. Since then, almost 130,000 of the stones have been laid, mostly in Germany but also in 30 other countries. But the world’s largest decentralized monument will not be extended in the town of Heidenau, near Dresden, after the city council approved a ban on new stones. The councilors behind the measure argued that the stones’ placement meant that pedestrians stepped on the names of the dead and that honoring victims at a local cemetery would be more appropriate. Christian values Demnig has dismissed the argument, saying the stones made remembrance more visible and created a tangible historical legacy for younger generations. He also claimed the ban was predictable following recent state elections in which the AfD made large gains. "After the electoral successes of the AfD, something like this was completely expected," Demnig was quoted by the DPA news agency as saying, going on to accuse Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDO) of abandoning Christian values and should drop the C from their initialism. The executive vice president of the International Auschwitz Committee also slammed the CDU’s support for the move as scandalous. "This is a transparent and despicable attempt to drive Nazi victims in Heidenau out of the city once again and dispose of them where, according to the AfD, their memory has belonged a long time ago—at the cemetery," Christoph Heubner said in a statement.
