Stumbling Stone Sonnenscheinstraße 21

This memorial stone (Stolperstein or stumbling stone) commemorates:
Elsa Heinrich (born 1899, murdered in Grafeneck on 5-11-1940).

Elsa Heinrich was the third of seven children. She was epileptic and at age 8 she was sent to a nursing home in Stetten (Pflegeanstalt Stetten). The Schorndof Authority paid for her accomodation. She attended school in Stetten for 2 years and was considered a good student. She apparently went home for a while. Her condition began deteriorating in 1927. In 1932, she returned to the Stetten facility, but was allowed to spend holidays at home. She became extremely homesick and then suicidal, including a hunger strike and a wish to poison herself or cut her veins. When the Nazis decided she was not worthy of life, they deported her to Grafeneck where they murdered her at age 41 using carbon monoxide gas. A total of 330 patients from Pfleganstalt Stetten were deported in 8 "grey buses" to their deaths at Grafeneck.

Grafeneck Castle became a euthanasia center as part of the Nazi Aktion T-4, which authorized and carried out in 1940 the killing of 10,654 mentally or physically disabled people. They were systematically murdered by lethal injection or gas – a precursor to the mass murders at concentration and extermination camps.

"Stolpersteine" is an art project for Europe by Gunter Demnig to commemorate victims of National Socialism (Nazism). Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) are small brass plaques placed in the pavement in front of the last voluntary residence of (mostly Jewish) victims who were murdered by the Nazis. Each plaque is engraved with the victim’s name, date of birth and place (mostly a concentration camp) and date of death. By doing this, Gunter Demnig gives an individual memorial to each victim. One stone, one name, one person. He cites the Talmud: "A human being is forgotten only when his or her name is forgotten."

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