The success and limitations of remembrance
Memorial cobblestones for Wolfgang Leppmann
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In mid-June 2018, six brass-topped cobblestones were unveiled in the Tiergarten district of Berlin in memory of the Leppmann family. One of them is dedicated to Wolfgang Leppmann. He was a contributor to Osteuropa and was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943. The concept created by artist Gunter Demnig of remembering an individual who was a victim of National Socialism through a stone inserted into the ground is ingenious in its clarity. In the meantime, people in 21 countries now bow down to the victims when they stoop to read the inscription on the cobblestone. In Eastern-Central and Eastern Europe, where most of the Jews murdered in the Shoah lived, remembrance of individuals is reaching its limits.
(Osteuropa 6/2018, pp. 127–134)