This workshop explores spatial aspects of the experiences of German-Jews during 1930s, in Germany and in transit. In highlighting the convoluted relations between place and identity—and the essential influence of these relations on the history of emotions, thoughts and culture—the workshop focuses on the spaces that shaped German-Jewish self-perceptions in the face of National Socialism. While the workshop discusses specific locations, it also examines the concepts of space and place as analytical tools to enhance the historical understanding of Jewish life under Nazi rule and Jewish responses to Nazi persecution. In so doing, the workshop seeks to scrutinize and complicate recent trends in the study of German-Jewish history.
The Keynote Lecture will be given by Professor Marion Kaplan, a renowned researcher of German-Jewish history in modern times and one of the first to address questions of place and space in the experience of German Jews under Nazism.
Organisers: David Jünger (Universität Rostock), Ofer Ashkenazi (The Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History), Björn Siegel (Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden) und Katrin Steffen (Sussex Weidenfeld Institut of Jewish Studies)
This workshop takes place IN PERSON. To comply with current regulations to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, please register in advance by contacting Dr. David Jünger (david.juenger@uni-rostock.de).
PROGRAM
Thursday, 12 May
12:30–13:00
Introduction
13:00–15:00
1. Creating Spaces of Memory
Gerald Lamprecht (Graz)
Entangled Memories. Jewish and non-Jewish Discourses on the Great War in Interwar Austria
Katrin Steffen (Brighton)
East German-Jewish Spaces in Berlin. Jewish Heritage Societies (Heimatvereine) and their diasporic milieu in the 1930ies
Joachim Schlör (Southampton)
Brückenallee 33, Berlin
15:30-17:30
2. Being In-Between
David Jünger (Rostock)
From Myth to Reality. German Jews Discover Palestine (1933–1938)
Charlie Knight (Southampton)
Mapping your coordinates. Space and Transnationality in Refugee Correspondence
Björn Siegel (Hamburg/Graz)
Ships to Nowhere. A Maritime Space and Its Relevance to Decode Jewish Refugees’ experiences in the 1930s
18:00-19:30
Keynote Lecture
Marion Kaplan (New York)
The Emotional Dissonance of Spaces. German Jewish Refugees in Portugal
Hörsaal 218, Universitätshauptgebäude, Universitätsplatz 1
Friday 13 May
09:00-11:30
3. Vanishing Jewish Spaces
Guy Miron (Jerusalem)
Synagogues, Cemeteries, Sports facilities. Jewish spaces and places in Nazi Germany
Teresa Walch (Greensboro)
Rendering Germany ‘judenrein’: Space, Ideology, and German Jews in the 1930s
Kim Wünschmann (Hamburg)
Filming the destruction of the Munich Main Synagogue in June 1938. A spatial history-approach to the reading of visual sources
Miriam Rürup (Potsdam)
Dejudaization before Deportation. The removal of Jewish traces in urban topographies of German cities
12:00-14:00
4. Visualizing Jewish Spaces
Robert Mueller-Stahl (Potsdam)
Capturing crisis. German-Jewish private travel photography between the Weimar Republic and Nazism
Sarah Wobick-Segev (Hamburg)
Being and Not Being in Time and Place
Ofer Aschkenazi (Tel Aviv)
The Displacement of the Ordinary. The German-Jewish Home in Photography Narratives of Emigration
14:15-15:30
Round table: Final Discussion
with Sandwich lunch
This workshop explores spatial aspects of the experiences of German-Jews during 1930s, in Germany and in transit. In highlighting the convoluted relations between place and identity—and the essential influence of these relations on the history of emotions, thoughts and culture—the workshop focuses on the spaces that shaped German-Jewish self-perceptions in the face of National Socialism. While the workshop discusses specific locations, it also examines the concepts of space and place as analytical tools to enhance the historical understanding of Jewish life under Nazi rule and Jewish responses to Nazi persecution. In so doing, the workshop seeks to scrutinize and complicate recent trends in the study of German-Jewish history.
The Keynote Lecture will be given by Professor Marion Kaplan, a renowned researcher of German-Jewish history in modern times and one of the first to address questions of place and space in the experience of German Jews under Nazism.
Organisers: David Jünger (Universität Rostock), Ofer Ashkenazi (The Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History), Björn Siegel (Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden) und Katrin Steffen (Sussex Weidenfeld Institut of Jewish Studies)
This workshop takes place IN PERSON. To comply with current regulations to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, please register in advance by contacting Dr. David Jünger (david.juenger@uni-rostock.de).
PROGRAM
Thursday, 12 May
12:30–13:00
Introduction
13:00–15:00
1. Creating Spaces of Memory
Gerald Lamprecht (Graz)
Entangled Memories. Jewish and non-Jewish Discourses on the Great War in Interwar Austria
Katrin Steffen (Brighton)
East German-Jewish Spaces in Berlin. Jewish Heritage Societies (Heimatvereine) and their diasporic milieu in the 1930ies
Joachim Schlör (Southampton)
Brückenallee 33, Berlin
15:30-17:30
2. Being In-Between
David Jünger (Rostock)
From Myth to Reality. German Jews Discover Palestine (1933–1938)
Charlie Knight (Southampton)
Mapping your coordinates. Space and Transnationality in Refugee Correspondence
Björn Siegel (Hamburg/Graz)
Ships to Nowhere. A Maritime Space and Its Relevance to Decode Jewish Refugees’ experiences in the 1930s
18:00-19:30
Keynote Lecture
Marion Kaplan (New York)
The Emotional Dissonance of Spaces. German Jewish Refugees in Portugal
Hörsaal 218, Universitätshauptgebäude, Universitätsplatz 1
Friday 13 May
09:00-11:30
3. Vanishing Jewish Spaces
Guy Miron (Jerusalem)
Synagogues, Cemeteries, Sports facilities. Jewish spaces and places in Nazi Germany
Teresa Walch (Greensboro)
Rendering Germany ‘judenrein’: Space, Ideology, and German Jews in the 1930s
Kim Wünschmann (Hamburg)
Filming the destruction of the Munich Main Synagogue in June 1938. A spatial history-approach to the reading of visual sources
Miriam Rürup (Potsdam)
Dejudaization before Deportation. The removal of Jewish traces in urban topographies of German cities
12:00-14:00
4. Visualizing Jewish Spaces
Robert Mueller-Stahl (Potsdam)
Capturing crisis. German-Jewish private travel photography between the Weimar Republic and Nazism
Sarah Wobick-Segev (Hamburg)
Being and Not Being in Time and Place
Ofer Aschkenazi (Tel Aviv)
The Displacement of the Ordinary. The German-Jewish Home in Photography Narratives of Emigration
14:15-15:30
Round table: Final Discussion
with Sandwich lunch
A gathering of Lithuanian Jews and descendants, which includes an academic conference, a cultural fest, guided tours to Jewish heritage in several towns and cities around the country — Vilnius, Kaunas, Panevėžys, Šeduva, Pakruojis — and more.
Click here to see the full program
Pre-registration is required by filling out the following form:
The second Jewish Culture Festival to be held in Klaipeda programs a series of concerts and lectures, and also events anchored by the sites of the built heritage of the Jews of Klaipeda (historically Memel).
These include a “Sound walk in the footsteps of the disappeared synagogues of Klaipėda” on September 24, and guided tours of Jewish Klaipeda in the first week of October.
The multi-day event “Mapping Memories” revolves around the violently suppressed traces of Frankfurt’s Judengasse from public space. At its center is a pop-up exhibition in the Museum Judengasse with archaeological finds from the time of Europe’s oldest Jewish ghetto; also an artistic intervention in the current form of the historic site.
The exhibition, with archaeological finds that were recovered from Börneplatz – formerly the southern part of the Judengasse ghetto – in 1987, will be held in the atrium of the Museum Judengasse.
It opens at 18:00 on April 13 — to attend, register with anmeldung@metahubfrankfurt.de
The exhibition is a cooperation with the Archaeological Museum Frankfurt.
It shows archaeological finds that were recovered in 1987 at Börneplatz, at the place where they were found at the time. It presents ongoing research and new insights into the everyday culture of Jews in early modern Frankfurt. The archaeological finds come both from the cellars of the Judengasse and from ditches for water supply and disposal.
The annual conference of the Association of European Jewish Museums.
This year’s International Jewish Culture Festival „SHALOM IN ALL THE WORLD“ focuses on the Jewish woman, her role and importance in history, culture, traditions, social life.
Events will take place in Klaipėda, and also in Švėkšna and Gargždai, Lithuania.
There will be exhibitions, workshops, lectures, concerts, books presentations, films, and more.
A multimedia exhibition by the artist, architect and historian Natalia Romik dedicated to the creativity of Polish Jews seeking to survive the Shoah in hiding.
In Poland and Ukraine during World War II, approximately 50,000 people survived persecution by the German occupying forces in hiding. The majority of them were Jewish. They found refuge in tree hollows, closets, basements, sewers, empty graves, and other precarious locations. Natalia Romik’s exhibition “Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival” pays tribute to these fragile places of refuge and explores their physicality. The show poses basic questions about the relationship between architecture, private life, and the public sphere: it addresses the protective function of spaces and emphasizes the creativity those in hiding brought to bear in their attempt to survive.
In a research project extending over several years, Natalia Romik and an interdisciplinary team of researchers consulted oral histories to identify several hiding places, which they explored using forensic methods. The multimedia exhibition “Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival” presents the results of this research. It consists of sculptures bearing a direct connection to the sites and includes documentary films, forensic recordings, photos, documents, and objects found in the hiding places.
“Hideouts: The Architecture of Survival” is presented in cooperation with the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw and the TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Szczecin. On the occasion of the show at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, a catalogue will be published in German and English editions by Hatje Cantz Verlag.
The exhibition was curated by Kuba Szreder and Stanisław Ruksza with the help of Aleksandra Janus (scientific collaboration). For the presentation in Frankfurt, Katja Janitschek, curator of the Judengasse Museum, was responsible for the curatorial project management. We would like to thank the Evonik Foundation for their generous support.
There will be more than 60 events including readings, concerts, lectures, tours, workshops and film screenings, held in 14 different towns and cities in the German state of Thuringia.
The full program can be found HERE from January 30, 2024.
The Jewish Community of the state of Thuringia runs the festival together with the Support Association for Jewish-Israeli Culture in Thuringia e.V.
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