Familie Gutter

Look down as you walk through Leipzig and you may catch a small brass plate set flush into the pavement. It is a Stolperstein, part of the project the artist Gunter Demnig started in the 1990s. This one belongs to the Gutter family: Helene and Isidor, members of Leipzig's Jewish community. The stone stands at the last home they chose for themselves before they were taken away.

In Leipzig, districts such as Waldstraßenviertel and Gohlis hold many of these stones. Together they form a single memorial, scattered through the city instead of gathered in one place. Each stone records a name and, in many cases, a birth year, sometimes even when and where a person was deported. The people remembered include Jewish families, but also Roma and Sinti, political prisoners and people with disabilities. Local researchers check every name before anyone lays a stone, and relatives or neighbours sometimes attend the small ceremony.

The low position carries the idea: the marker stays part of daily life instead of standing apart on a pedestal. Volunteers polish the brass so the names stay legible. Anyone who pauses over those letters returns Helene and Isidor Gutter, for a moment, to their own doorstep.