You walk along a quiet city street somewhere in Germany. The shadows are long, the church bells are ringing, the river glints in the evening sunlight and it's pleasantly warm. Crowds are rushing by, in the way crowds do between the end of work and the beginning of the evening's television special, but you don't mind. You've got time. You stoop to tie your shoe and there, among the pigeons squabbling over bits of ice cream cone, you see something shiny. It appears to be a brass paving stone. A surveyor's benchmark? A hydrant cover? There seems to be something written on it, etched out in shadows against the bright brass.

Hier wohnte
Jenni Peters
geb. Dannenberg
Jg. 1879
deportiert 1942
ermordet in
Auschwitz

- A stone at Lange Str. 17
in Uslar, Germany

Even if your German's not too good, you can make out a few words. And the name that jumps out at you - Auschwitz - is chillingly familiar. But what does it mean?