Stolper Steine/Stumbling Stones Project

After doing some brain storming, the Stolper Steine group came up with two ideas for how we'd like to work with some of the questions/thoughts we came up with in our first meeting. The ideas were 1) to ask passers-by in the street if they knew what the Stolper Steine on the sidewalk were, and 2) to clean the Stolper Steine and see what (if any) reactions we produced by doing so.

To prepare, we tried to find the locations of stones in Vienna online, however we were unable to find any lists as to where the various stones are located. The official website as well as other Google searches brought up nothing. Instead, we ended up going back to stones we had noticed ourselves in passing.

On November 5th, armed with paper towels (kitchen roll), a bottle of bronze polisher, and a water bottle, we hit the street. Mariahilferstrasse to be exact. We started at Westbahnhof and walked down hill. It took us a while to find the first set, but we were eventually able to locate a block of nineteen Stolper Steine outside the Thalia bookstore. Interestingly, these stones are not far from one of the apartments in which Adolf Hitler lived while still in Vienna. We were able to ask a couple standing by (actually partly on) the stones if they knew what they were and were told a general history. We then set about cleaning the stones with bronze cleaner while filming ourselves and passers by from a distance.

After cleaning the first set, we continued down the Mariahilferstrasse and came upon a second block of twelve Stolper Steine. The battery of the camera was running low and the position of the stones on the corner made video recording difficult, so we took more pictures while cleaning the second block of stones. Before we began to clean the second block, we asked a woman who was looking at the stones if she knew what they were. She answered that she was "not from here" but was able to figure out from the dates and the list of concentration camps that it had something to do with deportation during the war.

Here is a photo of the stones before they were cleaned. As one can see, they are very dull and dirty.

BEFORE

We cleaned the stones once, however they did not look much better than before they had been cleaned, so we decided to smear the bronze cleaner on the stones and let it work for a few minutes. While cleaning this second set of stones, we noticed that a police officer was watching out activities. He did not approach us and moved on after a few minutes. In this next photo, one can see how black the  bronze cleaner was when we wiped it away.

DURING

After a second cleaning and a rinse, the stones looked much shinier, however it is clear that they are still filthy and it seemed to us that it would take an industrial strength scrubbing to get them to look like new again!

AFTER

While cleaning the stones, we did have many observers, however many people did not even notice us and walked by without glancing over. No one approached us to ask what we were doing. It was an interesting feeling to be cleaning something that so many people don't even notice, even if they pass the spot every day. After we had finished, the group agreed that we felt like we had just done something important - that we had just honored the people listed on the Stolper Steine in a very small way, much like one might clean up and leave a few flowers on a grave site.

Thanks for reading!
Agnes, Erica, Hanna, and Michael

COMING SOON: a short video made while cleaning the stones.