German town sparks outrage as far-right and conservatives rally against Holocaust memorial plaques

GENEVA -- A decision by a city council in in eastern Germany to halt the laying of memorial plaques that honor Holocaust victims has sparked outrage, not least because some of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives joined the far-right Alternative for Germany in supporting the move.The city council of Heidenau, southeast of Dresden, on Thursday voted to end the practice of laying the engraved brass plaques featuring the names of Holocaust victims into sidewalks — often in place of cobblestones and near the homes where they once lived.Created by German artist Gunter Demnig, the Stolpersteine, or “stumbling blocks” in German, are the palm-sized memorial plaques that bear the names and fates of Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis. They have become a prominent form of Holocaust remembrance in Germany.The first block was laid in the western city of Cologne in 1992, and today more than 126,000 can be found in over 30 countries across Europe, honoring some of the 6 million Jews and others killed in the Holocaust.City councilors from the AfD and Merz's center-right Christian Democratic Union came together behind the municipal action, whose promoters claimed that many relatives of Ho...