The first time our tour group visited one of the American cemeteries, our guides warned us to NOT brush off any pebbles we might see on the Jewish headstones. There is a Jewish tradition of leaving a pebble or stone on the tombstone signifying that someone has honored the deceased with a visit to the grave. There are other superstitions surrounding the custom such as the stones were to keep the soul in the grave. A more practical evolution of this was probably putting the rocks on graves to keep scavanger animals from digging them up back in the olden days.
In any case, the first thing we started looking for was the sight of these pebbles on the Star of David tombstones at the American cemeteries. The 'devotion' really touched us and we started keeping an eye out for pebbles to have on hand in case we found a 'neglected' grave. We didn't! Note the large memorial on the left of the collage also has some stones left there.
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