33^rd STUMBLING STONE LAYING

The stones for the homosexual victims were laid in the morning, because five school classes (Jena Plan School, Dag Hamarskjöld High School, Heuchelhof Middle School, Private Commercial  College Müller and Philipp Melanchton School) and the 31st Training Seminar of the Würzburg Police had taken over the sponsorship for them. Weeks before, supported by members of the AK Stolpersteine and the WUF -Zentrum(LBQT Centre), they had already researched into the lives of these homosexual men. During the Nazi era, these men were persecuted on the basis of Article 175 (German Criminal Code), arrested, sentenced to harsh prison terms and then sent to concentration camps, where many of them perished. With great commitment, the students presented the results of their studies at the laying of each stone. Texts, poems, pictures and music accompanied the laying and were much appreciated by the audience.

During the main laying (stone for Georg Burger), the Lord Mayor of Würzburg, Christian Schuchardt, also addressed the fate of homosexuals until their rehabilitation in 2002 and emphasized the importance of the Stolpersteine as places of remembrance. The young officers of the Würzburg police staged the laying like a funeral with a book of condolence, a wreath, a photograph of the deceased and a song. Georg Burger, like all other victims, had not been granted this by the National Socialists.

In the afternoon stones were laid for Jewish victims and victims of the euthanasia programme, and often the residents of the buildings where the victims once lived witnessed the ceremony.

Pictures taken by Alexander Kraus