Have you ever had this feeling, you come home after a hard day and you hear the door close behind.  You are HOME and just for a moment you feel that overwhelming sense of security.  Perhaps there are voices in the distance in an earnest conversation, maybe a pot of something with smells of a supper about to be consumed or perhaps complete quiet – only broken by the familiar sounds of house creaking – clock ticking and peaceful stay-in evening awaiting.

A Photo Blog About the Banality of Evil

The homey setting was shattered for about 9/10’s of the former Jewish population of Vienna [1]:

The formerly flourishing Jewish community of Vienna was all but obliterated by the National Socialists. By May 1939, roughly 130,000 persons considered Jews under the Nuremberg Racial Laws had left the country …. In 1938, approximately 206,000 persons of Jewish extraction (181,000 of which were members of the Jewish Community of Vienna) had been living in the Austrian capital.

Over 65,000 Jews were murdered in concentration and extermination camps. They are part of the six million victims of a mass murder organised with mathematical precision. We owe these victims the solidarity and respect due to them and their suffering.

Organizing the self-exile of the above individuals or their transportation to a final end required the machinery of government.  This machinery in turn coined the term ‘the banality of evil’ [6]:

In her 1963 book ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’, Hannah Arendt reports on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a German SS official who managed the logistics of the deportation of Jews to ghettos and concentration camps during World War II. Arendt’s portrayal of Eichmann is surprising — rather than an evil monster, she describes him as “terribly and terrifyingly normal”. Arendt’s observation of the “coexistence of normality and bottomless cruelty” in Eichmann led her to coin the term “banality of evil”. Under this lens, evil was not something incomprehensible and different but something almost ordinary. 

Stolperstein the Remembrance in Banality

Each of these victims whether they be Jewish, a homosexual, a communist or simply different, had a home to come home to at one point.  So while there are a number of memorials in Vienna for not only the Jews but other victims of the National Socialism, I find the most powerful to be the Stolperstein [2]:

…literally “stumbling stone”, metaphorically a “stumbling block” or a stone to “stumble upon”; plural stolpersteine) is a cobblestone-size (10 by 10 centimetres (3.9 in × 3.9 in)) concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution.

Over 61,000 stolpersteins have been laid in 610 different places with the first installed in 1992.  The stones are laid in front of the last place of residence by choice (as opposed to a residence selected by force) or if necessary the last known work place of the individual. Each stone is made by hand (about 450 per month) which is done in direct contradiction to the industrialized mass murder of the National Socialists.

To install a stone, the project originator Gunter Demnig has provided the following guidelines [3]:

1. Permission: obtain permission for the local municipality, family members and ideally the current owner of the building.
2. Inscriptions: each stone will contain one person’s name.  This person may have died in a camp, survived, fled the country or committed suicide.
3. Appointments: Gunter lays the first stone in each new village – with the exception of Vienna.

Vienna’s Stolpersteine

Within Vienna, a private association Steine der Erinnerung or ‘Stones of Memory’ have laid over 1,000 stolpersteine since 2005.  Inspired by the work of Gunter Demnig, there is not a formal association between the two organizations and in fact Demning has accused the Vienna based organization of plagiarism [4].

Nevertheless, the Vienna organization appears to be mostly honouring the wishes and standards set by the originator of the project. In some ways the association may have gone beyond Demning’s original vision by making it a more community affair rather than focused on the original artist.   As well, the organization also has a searchable database  and maps [5] of the 1,000 stones they have laid.

Walk Abouts and Finding the Stolpersteine

Only when researching this blog did I discover the last two resources, a database and maps [5].  In many ways I am glad that I did not know about these.  Instead I simply walk-about Vienna looking for a Stolpersteine.  To me this was a better way of doing it because finding a stolperstein should be a profound act of ordinariness.  This is beauty of this art project, the banality of the monument that shatters the sense of peace we all love when we walk into our home.

Visit June (24-30) 2018 – A Photo a Day to see the pictures.

• [1]. City of Vienna: jewishvienna/history/nationalsocialism.
• [2]. Wikipedia: Stolperstein.
• [3].Stolperstein: Technical Instructions.
• [4]. Stadt Wien Bekiannt: Stones of memory.
• [5]. Steine der Erinnerung: steinedererinnerung.net.
• [6]. Huffington Post: Exploring the Banality of Evil.