Stolperstein dedicated to Herman Isaksen, stumbling stone in Oslo, Norway

Stolperstein dedicated to Herman Isaksen is a small memorial plaque set into the sidewalk outside a residential building at Rosteds gate 16 in Oslo. The square brass block sits flush with the rough grey paving and carries engraved text stating that a tailor named Herman Isaksen was born in 1908, deported in 1942, and killed at Auschwitz on 4 March 1943. The surface shows thin scratches that come from daily foot traffic passing over the metal.

Herman Isaksen was arrested in October 1942 together with his father and held at Berg outside Tønsberg until the deportation ship D/S Donau left Oslo on 26 November. His mother and a brother were arrested the same day the ship departed and sent on the same transport; Herman was later killed in a gas chamber in 1943.

The stone belongs to a network of small brass markers placed across Oslo and other European cities to keep the name of a deported person visible in front of their former home. Passersby often pause and crouch to read the lines, which creates a quiet moment of remembrance in the middle of an ordinary street.

Look for this memorial directly on the pavement in front of the building entrance, so you need to glance downward while walking along the street. Because the surface can become dull or dirty from shoes and weather, the inscription may be easier to read when the sidewalk is dry and daylight falls across it.

A small typographic detail on the plaque reads DREPT, a word that mixes the Norwegian drept and the German Tod, rather than the expected Norwegian form. His wife and son escaped to Sweden, which means this stone marks the fate of one person while the rest of his immediate family survived the war.