The vandals pulled out all ten stones from the ground, ZDF television confirmed, adding that this was the first time this had ever happened in the Federal Republic. Anti-Jewish outbursts connected mainly with expressions of hatred towards the State of Israel and calls for its liquidation have recently been the responsibility of numerous immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries in Germany.
The stones of the disappeared, literally “stones over which one must stumble” (obstruct with the gaze), are cobblestones with a brass surface embedded in the pavement in front of the houses of the victims of the Holocaust and the Nazi regime. They have the form of a small square tile made of concrete with an edge of ten centimeters and are finished with a brass plate bearing the text “Zde žil/a…”
The spokesman confirmed that two criminal reports were filed – by the city mayor and also by the Stolpersteine (Stones of the Disappeared) initiative.
According to the police, the case is being investigated by state security, which is dealing with possible political motivation.
The entire political spectrum was shocked
A number of politicians and organizations in Saxony-Anhalt expressed outrage at the act. This act is “unforgivable and can never be excused”, wrote district governor Götz Ulrich from the Christian Democracy (CDU) on the X platform.
“Anyone who behaves like this also wants to tear the Holocaust out of our memory and culture. The greatest crime against humanity of all time must forever remain a reminder of what people are capable of,” he pointed out.
It’s not just any theft, emphasized Eva von Angernová, head of the parliamentary faction of the Left party in the state assembly of Saxony-Anhalt. “It is a disgusting act, promoting historical forgetfulness. It is especially perfidious that it happened on the day of the sad anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel. This clearly shows that anti-Semitism must be recognized as a big problem in Saxony-Anhalt as well,” she added.
Sebastian Striegel, member of the regional assembly for the Greens from Zeitz, emphasized that neither living nor dead Jews are safe from rampant anti-Semitism in society.
The initiator also condemned the dishonor
Even Gunter Demnig from Hesse, the artist and initiator of the commemorative paving stones, who laid the first of them on December 16, 1992, at that time without the consent of the city, in front of the town hall in Cologne, does not hide his dismay. “I have noticed that they are also stolen, usually individual stones are stolen. Such dishonor is unprecedented,” he points out.
To date, approximately 112 thousand stones have been laid in 32 countries of the world. According to Demnig, about 900 of them fell victim to thieves.
Anti-Semitism is a negative attitude, even hatred towards Jews or the Jewish faith (Judaism). The origin of the word dates back to the 19th century, it was probably first used in 1860 by the Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider in the phrase anti-Semitic prejudices in connection with the ideas of the French philosopher Ernest Renan about the superiority of the Aryan race over the Semitic.
Later, the term appeared in German nationalist literature and was directed exclusively against people of Jewish origin or religion, although it seems to refer to Semites in general. The term Semite (derived from the biblical Shem) is a designation for nations speaking a Semitic language, i.e. Hebrew or Arabic, for example. Due to the historical development of the term anti-Semitism, which from the beginning was exclusively related to Jews, Arabs can paradoxically be called anti-Semites, even if they are Semites themselves.
