A brief journey through the long Jewish history of Germany

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A brief journey through the long Jewish history
of Germany by Prof. Sebastian Wogenstein
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321
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400 BCE
The Jewish diaspora
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A papal decree (1215) forced Jews to wear pointed
hats
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Jews being burned (1348)
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Rashi ??''? Rabbi Shlomo ben
Yitzchak (1040-1105)
Rashi-Chair at the synagogue of Worms
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In the Jewish quarter of Worms
Rashi House
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Worms
Speyer
Speyer Worms Mainz Three cities with major
Jewish communities and yeshivot (religious
academies) in Germany when written in Hebrew
letters, often abbreviated as shoom ??''?
because of the city names first letters in
Hebrew shoom means garlic
Mainz
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Darmstadt Haggadah (lt 1391)
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Allegories Ecclesia (church) and Synagoga at the
Strasbourg cathedral Christian theology
propagated the image of the Church as triumphing
over broken Judaism (broken lance, blindfolded,
broken stone tablet)
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Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786)
Philosopher and translator with his
contributions to the Enlightenment in Germany,
one of the founders of modern German culture
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Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's drama Nathan the Wise
(1779) dealing with conflicts between
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam suggesting a
resolution of these conflicts in underscoring the
equality of humans regardless of their religious
affiliation
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Christian Wilhelm Dohm demands full legal
equality for Jews in his treatise On the Civic
Improvement of the Jews (1781)
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Declaration of Human Rights (French Revolution
1789)
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Early 19th-Century Salons
Rahel Levin-Varnhagen
"Republic of free spirit" - Rahel
Levin-Varnhagen's "Tea- and Conversation Society"
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Henriette Herz
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Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) Poet
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Rhine-Valley The Loreley
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Die Lorelei Ich weiß nicht, was
soll es bedeuten, Daß ich so traurig bin Ein
Märchen aus alten Zeiten, Das kommt mir nicht aus
dem Sinn. Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt, Und
ruhig fließt der Rhein Der Gipfel des Berges
funkelt Im Abendsonnenschein. Die schönste
Jungfrau sitzet Dort oben wunderbar, Ihr goldnes
Geschmeide blitzet, Sie kämmt ihr goldenes
Haar. Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme, Und singt
ein Lied dabei Das hat eine wundersame, Gewaltige
Melodei. Den Schiffer im kleinen
Schiffe Ergreift es mit wildem Weh Er schaut
nicht die Felsenriffe, Er schaut nur hinauf in
die Höh'. Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen Am
Ende Schiffer und Kahn Und das hat mit ihrem
Singen Die Lorelei getan.
The Loreley I cannot
determine the meaningOf sorrow that fills my
breastA fable of old, through it
streaming,Allows my mind no rest.The air is
cool in the gloamingAnd gently flows the
Rhine.The crest of the mountain is gleamingIn
fading rays of sunshine. The loveliest maiden is
sittingUp there, so wondrously fairHer golden
jewelry is glist'ningShe combs her golden
hair.She combs with a gilded comb, preening,And
sings a song, passing time.It has a most
wondrous, appealingAnd pow'rful melodic rhyme.
The boatman aboard his small skiff, -Enraptured
with a wild ache,Has no eye for the jagged
cliff, -His thoughts on the heights fear
forsake.I think that the waves will devourBoth
boat and man, by and by,And that, with her
dulcet-voiced powerWas done by the Loreley.
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Käthe Kollwitz Der Weberaufstand (1897/98)
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Die schlesischen Weber Im düstern Auge keine Träne,Sie sitzen am Webstuhl und fletschen die ZähneDeutschland, wir weben dein Leichentuch,Wir weben hinein den dreifachen Fluch Wir weben, wir weben! Ein Fluch dem Gotte, zu dem wir gebetenIn Winterskälte und HungersnötenWir haben vergebens gehofft und geharrt,Er hat uns geäfft und gefoppt und genarrt Wir weben, wir weben! Ein Fluch dem König, dem König der Reichen,Den unser Elend nicht konnte erweichen,Der den letzten Groschen von uns erpreßt,Und uns wie Hunde erschießen läßt Wir weben, wir weben! Ein Fluch dem falschen Vaterlande,Wo nur gedeihen Schmach und Schande,Wo jede Blume früh geknickt,Wo Fäulnis und Moder den Wurm erquickt Wir weben, wir weben! Das Schiffchen fliegt, der Webstuhl kracht,Wir weben emsig Tag und Nacht Altdeutschland, wir weben dein Leichentuch,Wir weben hinein den dreifachen Fluch, Wir weben, wir weben!
The Silesian Weavers In somber eyes no tears of grievingGrinding their teeth, they sit at their weavingO Germany, at your shroud we sit,Were weaving a threefold curse in it Were weaving, were weaving! A curse on the God we prayed to, kneelingWith cold in our bones, with hunger reelingWe waited and hoped, in vain persevered,He scorned and duped us, mocked and jeered Were weaving, were weaving! A curse on the king of the rich mans nationWho hardens his heart at our supplication,Who wrings the last penny out of our hides,And lets us be shot like dogs besides Were weaving, we are weaving! A curse on this false fatherland, teemingWith nothing but shame and dirty scheming,Where every flower is crushed in a day,Where worms are regaled on rot and decay Were weaving, were weaving! The shuttle flies, the loom creaks loud,Night and day we weave your shroud Old Germany, at your shroud we sit,Were weaving a threefold curse in it, Were weaving , were weaving!
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Neue Synagoge Berlin (1866)
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Neue Synagoge Berlin (today)
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Royal decree, abolishing restrictions based on
religious affiliation (1869)
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German-Jewish soldiers in the Franco-Prussian War
(1870/71)
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Rosa Luxemburg
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Sigmund Freud
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Franz Kafka
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Carl Laemmle (founder of Universal Studios) with
Erich Maria Remarque (author of All Quiet on the
Western Front)
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Bar Kochba sports club parading after a relay
race, Munich 1932
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Albert Einstein
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Anna Seghers (Netty Reiling)
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Racist Nuremberg Laws 1935
1933 "Jews not welcome in Behringersdorf"
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Jewish men deportet to the concentration camp
Buchenwald
"Kristallnacht" Anti-Jewish pogroms in all
German cities and towns November 9, 1938
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Allied troops entering the concentration camp
Buchenwald in 1945
Deportations after the defeat of the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising in 1943
Murdered victims of the Holocaust gt 6 million
Jews gt 1.9 million Gentile Poles Russians ca.
800,000 Roma Sinti ca. 300,000 people with
disabilities ca. 100,000 communists ca. 25,000
homosexual men ca. 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses
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Glasses of victims at the death camp Auschwitz
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"For us Jews from Germany, an historical epoch
has come to an end. Such an epoch ends whenever a
hope, a belief, a trust has finally to be buried.
Our belief was that the German and the Jewish
spirit could meet on German soil and through
their marriage become a blessing. This was an
illusion the Jewish epoch in Germany is over,
once and for all." Leo Baeck in New York 1945,
after his liberation from the Theresienstadt
concentration camp
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According to the Central Council of Jews in
Germany (http//www.zentralratdjuden.de), Jewish
communities in Germany have about 100,000
officially registered members today. With the
continuing immigration from Eastern Europe, the
numbers are likely to rise. Young German-Jewish
writers, film-makers, and other artists are a
distinctive and important voice on the German,
Austrian, and Swiss cultural scene. Many of them
immigrants themselves, their identity claims
usually emphasize difference, alliances with
other migrants, multi-culturalism, and a critical
evaluation of their relationship with the State
of Israel.
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• Topography and double vision Contemporary
  German-Jewish literature
• Significance of places for memory in general and
  in the Jewish tradition in particular
• Topo-graphy
• topos (Greek) place, topic, theme
• graphein (Greek) to write, to inscribe
• 3) Place names and German-Jewish history
  Landscapes/topographies of memory
• Exterritorialities language
• "Topography of loss" metaphors of loss traces
  of history in the body writing not instructive,
  rather exemplary
• Migrant literature

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Katja Behrens (born 1942)
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• Collective memory of the Holocaust as foundation
  of tolerance and human rights
• Model function of trials on crimes against
  humanity e.g. the Nuremberg Trials 1945/46,
  Eichmann Trial 1961, Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial
  1965 International Court of Justice, The Hague
  (Netherlands)
• "Second modernity" as a deterritorialized
  modernity diaspora as the human condition
• "Universalization" of the Holocaust (Daniel
  Levy/Natan Sznaider) vs. particularization in the
  national collective memory
• What is "home" ("Heimat")? Henryk Broder's
  essay "Heimat? No thanks!"