Columnist Roger Cohen:

“Berlin is a city of absences. The stolpersteine, or stumbling stones, are now everywhere; the small brass bricks inlaid in sidewalks that recall a single Jewish life curtailed. What a beautiful name they have! You do stumble. You catch your breath, reminded of the everyday reach of the Nazi dragnet, of what diligence it took to decompose the German-Jewish world.”

Terry Swartzberg, head of the Munich chapter of the Stolpersteine: “As a New Yorker who has been reading the Times since 1960 I am very moved by Roger Cohen’s warm and wise words. The Stolpersteine have a beautiful name and are the realization of a beautiful idea. Gunter Demnig is one of our generation’s greats.”