Workshop "Space and Place in the German-Jewish Experience of the 1930s"

International Workshop Space and Place in the German-Jewish Experience of the 1930s

12-13 May 2022, University of Rostock, Internationales Begegnungszentrum (IBZ)

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.

In considering these and other current approaches, we bring together a wide range of scholars – from young researchers to prominent scholars of the field – to develop a new framework for the study of German-Jewish experience of the 1930s and beyond. Consequently, the discussions will also contribute to a broader spatial shift in Jewish as well as Holocaust studies. The Keynote Lecture will be given by Professor Marion Kaplan, who is one of the most renowned researchers 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)

Further information: https://www.geschichte.uni-rostock.de/aktuelles/newssytem/aktuelles-des-hi/detailansicht-der-news/n/workshop-space-and-place-in-the-german-jewish-experience-of-the-1930s/

Contact: david.juenger@uni-rostock.de

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).

Thursday
12 May

12:00–12:30
Arrival

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

End of conference & farewell