The Medium of the Sidewalk: Holocaust Commemoration & Stolpersteine Professor Susan Drucker
Lawrence Stessin Distinguished Professor of Journalism Lawrence Herbert School of Communication Dept. of Journalism, Media Studies, & Public Relations susan.j.drucker@hofstra.edu
Sculptor Gunter Demnig’s motto : ONE VICTIM - ONE STONE.
Public Domain & Public Controversy Sidewalks as Memorials
The victim speaks
Experienced “under your feet” & “through the Internet.”
Michael Friedrich Friedlander is the sole maker of these blocks
Mediated memorials
Stolpersteine or Stumbling Stones are “on the doorstep” or “in your face” forms of commemoration. There are now an estimated 70,000 throughout Europe. They are encountered in the physical environment and, increasingly, through media to find and augment the experience. This ongoing research is a case study in urban communication and interstice theory. It examines the implications of the fact that modern life is lived in the interstice between physical and mediated spaces.