Councillors from the AfD and CDU in Heidenau, near Dresden in Saxony, voted to ban Stolpersteine—brass plaques commemorating Nazi victims—from the town’s streets. The motion says future memorials should go at Nordfriedhof cemetery, where people cannot step on them.
The council motion said many residents considered this form of commemoration inappropriate. Germany’s Education Minister Karin Prien, a CDU member, called the ban a “scandal” and said her party’s Saxony branch also bore responsibility. German intelligence classifies the AfD in Saxony as extreme-right; the party rejects that designation.
Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor and president of the Jewish Community in Munich, called the decision to ban Stolpersteine from public space “completely the wrong approach.” Although she said she is not a supporter of the plaques, she argued that remembrance should remain spread through public spaces. Munich has no Stolpersteine on municipal land and instead allows memorial plaques on public buildings.
