Munich City Council has voted to uphold a ban on Stolpersteine, brass blocks inserted into pavements to commemorate Jewish Holocaust victims.
First created by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1996, the blocks are found in a number of cities across Germany, and 100,000 people, including members of the Jewish community, recently signed a petition to see them installed in Munich. Other Jewish community leaders are opposed to the stones though, saying that the victims' memories are 'desecrated every time someone walks over the blocks'. Instead, Munich officials have pledged to place commemorative plaques on the walls of victims' former homes, and to create a central monument in the city. Read more: thelocal.de