A stone of the Stolperstein project. Credit: Israel em Portugal
Portugal has officially joined the Stolperstein project, an international initiative that honors the victims of Nazism through small golden plaques installed on sidewalks in front of the victims’ former homes. Each stone bears the name of the person being commemorated, along with their dates of birth and death.
The project’s launch ceremony in Portugal took place at the Goethe-Institut in Lisbon and was attended by the Ambassador of Israel to Portugal, Oren Rozenblat, who emphasized the importance of preserving the memory of the Holocaust and combating the growing number of antisemitic incidents. In his speech, Rozenblat also expressed concern about the rise of antisemitism in the country.
The Ambassador of Israel to Portugal, Oren Rozenblat. Credit: Israel em Portugal
The local implementation was led by the Jewish Cultural Center Rua da Judiaria, under the direction of Luciano Waldman, in cooperation with the German Embassy in Portugal and German artist Gunter Demnig, the creator of the initiative.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Gunter Demnig was born in Berlin in 1947, where he studied Art and Industrial Design. He developed the Stolperstein project in the 1990s in the German city of Cologne, later expanding it to more than 30 European countries. Today, the golden plaques have become the largest decentralized memorial in the world, commemorating millions of lives cut short by the Nazi regime.
