Memorializing Nazi Victims: 20 New Obstacles Erected in Kaiserlautern

Memorial Stones in Germany respectively underscore the destinies during the Nazi period. Further installations will occur in Kaiserslautern this Sunday.

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2025 September 15 . 2:50 PM

2 min read

Commemorating Nazi Victims: 20 Challenges in Kaiserlautern

Memorializing Nazi Victims: 20 New Obstacles Erected in Kaiserlautern

On Sunday, the city of Kaiserslautern, Germany, will add more Stumbling Stones to its streets, honoring Jewish citizens who were persecuted, arrested, tortured, and murdered during the Nazi era. One of the individuals being remembered through this initiative is Alfred Bruck, a Jewish citizen born in 1923.

Bruck, the child of a Jewish father and a Protestant mother, was deported shortly before the end of the war and ended up in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. After the war, he lived on a small farm in today's Kaiserslautern district. An over 90-year-old eyewitness on Alfred Bruck's farm remembered his deportation.

Bruck was liberated by the US Army and emigrated to the USA in 1951, where he died in 2001 in the state of Illinois.

The practice of laying Stumbling Stones began with an initiative by artist Gunter Demnig in 1992. These small, square cobblestones, each engraved with the name and life dates of a victim, are intended to remind passers-by of the individuals who once lived there before being taken away during the Nazi era.

In Kaiserslautern, over 200 Stumbling Stones have been laid so far, and the initiative has researched the fates of 20 additional people for the laying of new stones. However, researching Jewish citizens in Kaiserslautern can sometimes be challenging, as Georg Emme, a member of the Kaiserslautern Stumbling Stone initiative, mentioned.

For example, the person from the Löwenstein family researched by the Initiative of the Stones of Remembrance in Kaiserslautern who was persecuted, arrested, tortured, and murdered during the Nazi era is not explicitly named in the provided search results.

The stolen Stumbling Stones have since been replaced, but their removal caused consternation beyond the city limits. In May, four Stumbling Stones were torn out of the ground in the Kaiserslautern city center by unknown perpetrators.

Despite these challenges, the Stumbling Stone initiative has prompted families to engage more deeply with their own family history. Some descendants of the victims will travel to the ceremony, including one family from Britain.

As of now, over 90,000 Stumbling Stones have been laid across Germany, each a silent testament to the lives lost during the Nazi era. The memorial stone layings in Kaiserslautern will also include the biographies of the victims, accompanied by music, as a way to remember and honour their memory.