"Those are stumbling stones," Warren told me.
"They're what?"  I asked.
He pointed, and I looked down at the road.
"Stumbling stones.  They're a memorial to Jewish people in Viterbo who were seized during the Holocaust," Warren said.

I bent down.  You could easily miss these three small copper cobblestones as I would have if not for Warren, the math teacher here at SYA.  (He and his wife Amy and I were on our way to get gelato.)  On each copper cobblestone is the name of a person who lived at this site; a birth year; the year the person was taken to a concentration camp; the year the person died; the location where the person died.  All three were taken from Viterbo: Emanuele Vittorio, Angelo di Porto, Letizia Anticoli.

The stones are meant to make people stop and look at them, to take a moment to read these names, and to remember what happened to the world and what happened to individuals who lived right here where we now live.  These cobblestones are small but as powerful -- if not more? -- than a large memorial to honor those who died in concentration camps.  They remind us individuals who each had his or her own story.

I've always thought of Rome as a place that has layers of history -- the Etruscans and Romans during Monarchy, Republic, Empire; medieval times; the Renaissance; all those popes commissioning art; World Wars; capuccino and gelato and pasta and tourists like me now.  Viterbo is no different.  (Is anywhere, really?)

https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/the-stumbling-stones-of-jewish-memorials.html

https://www.npr.org/2012/05/31/153943491/stumbling-upon-miniature-memorials-to-nazi-victims?t=1533301214876