The group is called Stolpersteine für Konstanz - Gegen Vergessen und Intolerenz ("Stumbling Stones for Konstanz - Against Oblivion and Intolerence"). It has overseen the installment of the city's stones, each of which includes a short biography of the victim concerned. There is the victim's name, their birthplace, birth date, the information about what happened to them during the Nazi terror, as well as their fate and death date.
The stones are typically placed in the area immediately in front of their person's former home. In Konstanz, there are many houses, apartments and buildings with these stones in front of them. Some of the victims were young, others old. Some lived in wealthier parts of town, others lived meager lives. But between 1940 and 1943, every one of them left the city either to save themselves or under orders of the state.
No place in Germany has a set way of maintaining their Stolpersteine. Some cities levy a tax, while others charge through school fees or community funding.
The Stolperstein initiative seeks to address the sobering fact that governments can turn on their citizens and that, more importantly, the people who live under those governments acquiesce to the status quo. Since the Nazi regime, Germans have thrown themselves into the task of admitting their nation had failed in this respect and that they will do everything in their power to remember these atrocities for what they were.
A clue to this self-awareness lies in the German word Stolperstein itself.
