h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I applaud Herr Demnig's efforts and the design and placement of the 'stones', which in my view are both poignant and fitting.

The frightening thing though is the scale of the project. On my calculations if Demnig and his associate can each make three of these hand-engraved stones every day (I have allowed them a month off per year) it would take almost 5000 years for them to commemorate every victim of the wider holocaust (assuming that total to be 10 million, which seems not unreasonable given your figures).

My stats may be wrong of course (maths was never my strong point!), but the figures bring home the staggering scale of the enterprise and of the extermination process itself.

I sincerely hope those figures act as a catalyst for all right-minded people to get behind this project and ensure (in the event Herr Demnig isn't immortal!) that the maximum number of those millions of non-combatant citizens who Europe (and the world) needlessly lost through the extermination programmes can be remembered as the individuals they were.

Much as it would be poignant, we'll probably never know the names and lives of everyone who died there. A few scattered memorials probably trigger more thoughts that seeing them everywhere, because otherwise you see them all the time and ignore them, which is even worse.

I like the small scale of it; it feels more personal. As soon as it becomes a mass-production operation I think it would lose that personal touch and become just another memorial.

Welcome to h2g2, by the way.

Yes, I think that's a fair point. There are a lot of people trying to show the sheer scale of it, but that always grows abstract - he takes the opposite route and reminds us that these were all individuals, not numbers. That's what I like about this project, giving them individual voices rather than a collective memorial, and showing that these people came from everywhere, were friends, neighbours, people from the community...

It is quite mind-boggling. King Bomba once pointed out that Ireland has a population of about six million; imagine travelling clear across it and never meeting a single person!

On the other hand, being scattered around all places where every victim has lived wouldn't make it just another memorial, and may help realising the scale of the massacre. A list of names is a list of names, but (a lot of) isolated stones everywhere you go could be quite impressive when you think of it.

Anyway, I liked the sober presence of the stones when I didn't know they were a nationwide work of art, I admire them even more now I know they are.

This is a perfect guide entry. Thank you.

Thanks, Pheroneous

And that's true, Toybox - which is why I'm glad there are people mapping them so you can walk and look at them, rather than just making lists, which would defeat the purpose