Bad Segeberg commemorates with stumbling blocks: a sign of remembrance

Bad Segeberg commemorates with stumbling blocks: a sign of remembrance

There is a lot to encounter in Bad Segeberg when it comes to coming to terms with the dark chapters of the National Socialist past. A look at the history books shows that for a long time there was more silence than enlightenment. In the 1980s and 90s, author Axel Winkler observed how printed the persecution of Jewish fellow citizens was. In the period from 1933 to 1945, the crimes of the Third Reich added to the fates of many people who were violently torn from their lives.

Particularly noteworthy is the commitment of Winkler and Hans-Werner Baurycza, who published an extensive 16-volume series on the subject of National Socialism between 2021 and 2025. This is a central point in the current reappraisal, which has been launched in leaps and bounds at the moment. The way we deal with the Nazi era has changed noticeably over the past five years. 55 stumbling blocks have already been laid, with students from up to eight schools actively participating.

Stumbling blocks as symbols of remembrance

These stumbling blocks, which remember people whose lives have been changed by violence since 1933, stand as a memorial to fates that often ended in flight, hiding, suicide or even murder. The initiative goes back to the artist Gunter Demnig, who launched a worldwide project with these 10 cm concrete cubes with brass plates on which the names and dates of life of the victims are engraved. Since the first laying in Cologne in 1992, an impressive 100,000 stumbling blocks have been built by June 2023 and have established themselves as the largest decentralized monument in the world. Wikipedia reports that these small stones are intended to remind neighbors that people who were lost to National Socialism once lived there.

The list of stumbling blocks in Bad Segeberg serves as a document for the relocations that took place and the aim of giving the victims of National Socialism a face. Here are the relocation dates and the locations that led the students to the places where these people once lived. On July 29, 2009, for example, several stones were laid on Bismarckallee and Lübecker Straße, to name just a few. And there could even be 10 to 15 more stumbling blocks, which shows that the culture of remembrance lives on.

A collective silence?

Despite progress, the question of coming to terms with the past remains. The synagogue, which was built in 1842 and demolished in 1962, symbolizes the collective silence of the Nazi era in Bad Segeberg. At that time too, texts were made for memorial plaques on the synagogue property in which the persecution and murder of Jewish families were not mentioned. This led even Jewish guests from the USA and Israel to react with horror at the condition of the former synagogue property in the 1980s. The Jewish community in Hamburg distanced itself from the city, which illustrates the deep rift in the culture of remembrance.

The author Winkler recently received old family photos from the Jewish Steinhof family for his new book “Bad Segeberg – City of Remembrance Culture”, which he will read from on September 17th in the bookstore on the market. Entry costs 7 euros and is a wonderful opportunity to engage with the topic. Winkler also plans to examine the history of the Kalkberg Stadium, which was built during National Socialism. It's great that the Karl May Games, which began in 1952, saved the stadium from decay, but many visitors often don't know that they are standing in a building under a totalitarian regime, which makes Winkler shudder.

The lessons of the past are crucial. Bad Segeberg shows us that coming to terms with such events not only affects the past, but is also a responsibility of the present. The city is now considered a pioneer in coming to terms with the past, a reputation that extends to Israel. In the future, the city administration should pay even more active attention to involving students in the documentation of history, because as a wise man once said: “Memory is the key to the future”.