IN-PERSON: Prague – Section A

Abstract

‘Stolpersteine’ are minimalist memorials designed to call attention to National Socialist crimes in everyday life settings. They are brass plates inserted at flush level into the ground, each commemorating the life and death of a single individual who fell victim to the Holocaust at the very place the person was taken. These ‘counter memorials’ are part of urban landscapes and challenge passers-by to confront themselves with a history of violence during their quotidian routes around the city. The project was initiated by German artist Gunter Demnig, a professed son of a National Socialist. His work started in the 1990s and it has since reached transnational dimensions. Whereas the German Federal Republic is the only legal successor state of the National Socialist German ‘Reich’, Austria’s culpability has long been recognised in academic circles. Nonetheless, the acknowledgement of National Socialist crimes committed by Austrians has not penetrated the broader public in the same way as is the case in Germany. The paper argues that the way in which ‘Stolpersteine’ and derivative memorial projects have developed in Austria and, most prominently, in its capital Vienna, is representative of a wider lack of historical consciousness and accountability in the former ‘Ostmark’. It investigates the (fragmented) network of similar memorial projects in Vienna which have been accused of plagiarism by the originator, Gunter Demnig, and the ways in which Austrian initiatives present themselves in terms of national culpability for National Socialist crimes.