Ausschnitt aus einem Klassenfoto einer jüdischen Schulklasse aus Breslau, 1938

Photo credit:

Ausschnitt eines Klassenfotos einer jüdischen Schulklasse in Breslau 1938. Das Foto stammt aus dem Privatbesitz v. Gerda Bikales, geb. Bierzońska, u. wird im Film "Wir sind Juden aus Breslau" verwendet. (c) Karin Kaper Film

Jewish life in Eastern Europe yesterday and today

The culture and education, politics and economy of Eastern Europe are shaped by Jews, who have made up one of the largest population groups in many places since the Middle Ages. The articles show the many facets of Jewish history and culture in Eastern Europe and provide insights into current research.

Object and collection histories

Background article
Góra Kalwaria or Ger
The fate of the Jewish town and the Alter family library
Góra Kalwaria was one of many shtetls in Poland whose Jewish life disappeared in the wake of WW II. Also goods of Jewish culture suffered immense losses. Particularly interesting is the wartime fate of library owned by tzaddik's family Alter. The history of its dispersal during WW II is exemplary...
Alina Skibińska | Igor Kąkolewski
Background article
In search of history at the Jewish Museum Vienna
The history of a Galician Torah crown
Each of the objects on display at the Jewish Museum Vienna was once intended for daily or ritual use in Jewish families and communities and is bound up with the fates of Jewish people. Together, the objects, each torn from their original context, provide a memorial to the Jews who were displaced and...
Carolin Kayali
Object story
Wroclaw - Shanghai - Munich
A wardrobe trunk testifies to the fate of a Wroclaw Jew
A special object was donated to the Silesian Museum in Görlitz in November 2014: a large, solidly built wardrobe trunk. This imposing piece of luggage and furniture bears the markings of long journeys and intensive use. In 1939, it accompanied Herbert Schneidemann on his escape to Shanghai.
Markus Bauer
Object story
Max Mannheimer and his silver-gray Tatra 87
Max Mannheimer (1920-2016) was an institution, as a painter and storyteller, as a Holocaust survivor and chairman of the Dachau Camp Community.
Peter Becher

Places of remembrance and practices of remembrance

Background article
Places of commemoration of the Shoa in Szeged, Hungary
The Jewish community of Szeged in Hungary has a rich heritage dating back two centuries. Many of their descendants perished in the Holocaust, when Szeged was made the main deportation center for the region. The purpose of the following post is to showcase the Holocaust memorials erected by the...
Dóra Pataricza
Background article
Memorials in Wrocław
Remembering the Breslau Jewish community in the years prior to 1945.
The Jewish community in Breslau, which was the third-largest in the German Reich in 1925, was forgotten for many years. However, after 1989, new interest in local history began to emerge in Wrocław, Poland. Nowadays, monuments and a commemorative procession serve as reminders of the Jewish people...
Maria Luft
Background article
The Białystok Ghetto Cemetery as a Setting of Historical-Political Disputes
The history of the necropolis in eastern Poland acts like a burning glass, a focal point of the upheavals of the 20th century and Polish-Jewish relations after the Shoa. Today, remembrance of this historically significant site alternates between disinterest, urban image cultivation, and a ritualized...
Luca Thoma
Background article
Return and Redemption
Hasidic pilgrimages in contemporary Poland and Ukraine
This text highlights the diverse landscape of Hasidism and contemporary Hasidic pilgrimage in Poland and Ukraine.
Alla Marchenko
Background article
Synagogue, Workers’ University, Cultural Center
The Il Kal Grande in Sarajevo
Once the largest Sephardic synagogue in Yugoslavia, the Il Kal Grande was built in 1930 in the center of Sarajevo. After its partial destruction by german soldiers in 1941, the building has fulfilled a number of different functions and had a varied history, that is little known to this day.
Michael Ilg

Reconstructing for the Future

The digital 3D-reconstruction of synagogues as a possible approach to Jewish built cultural heritage in East Central Europe

To the article

Digitale 3D-Rekonstruktion der ehemalige Synagoge in Aschmjany, Belarus

Lifeworld perspectives

Jewish Postcard Publishers and the Imagery of the Urban
Background article
In numerous cities across eastern Europe, Jewish publishers enjoyed notable success on the newly established postcard market. This article presents a socio-historical background of this topic and asks whether their social positioning influenced the depictions of the urban world they chose to feature...
Vincent Hoyer | Maren Röger
Laima chocolate – a Riga icon
Latvia’s most famous confectioner and its Jewish origins
Background article
If you’ve ever visited Latvia, you’ll probably have heard of the chocolate brand Laima. Perhaps you’ll even have seen the Laima Clock, a popular meeting point in central Riga. Laima products have been among Latvia’s most successful exports all the way back to the 1920s. What’s less well...
Katja Wezel
The culinary Ashkenaz
Jewish food cultures in Eastern Europe
Background article
Ashkenazi Judaism is inseparably linked to Eastern Europe. Unique Jewish ways of life evolved here, only to be virtually annihilated by the Shoah. And yet, specific Ashkenazi eating habits, with their mix of religious rules and regional influences, survive in many places around the world today, in...
Gunther Hirschfelder | Antonia Reck | Jana Stöxen

Biographical approaches

Samuel Fränkel
A Berlin Jew as a Financier of Polish Industrialization in the Early 19th Century
Biography
The Berlin Jew Samuel Fränkel (1773-1833) settled in Warsaw in 1798 as a representative of a large bank. Within a few years and across numerous political breaks, Fränkel rose to become the most important banker in a divided Poland. In doing so, Fränkel always successfully drew on his...
Markus Nesselrodt
A diary as a companion during his escape in 1936
Biography
Fritz Lamm describes his escape from the Nazi persecution of Jews from Stettin via Switzerland and Austria to Prague in his previously unpublished diary.
Christian Lotz
Hungarian – Communist – Jew?
The many lives of Ernő Gáll (1917-2000), the philosopher without a homeland
Background article
This article sheds light on some facets of the life of the philosopher Ernő Gáll, who as a Jew, a communist, and a Hungarian was both politically persecuted and a perpetrator. A committed intellectual, he acted as a mediator between different political factions and hostile ethnic groups throughout...
Franz Sz. Horváth

Jewish life in Eastern Europe yesterday and today

Jews in Poland in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

Jewish History in Eastern Europe: The 19th Century

Jews in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe

Object and collection histories

Góra Kalwaria or Ger

In search of history at the Jewish Museum Vienna

Wroclaw - Shanghai - Munich

Max Mannheimer and his silver-gray Tatra 87

Places of remembrance and practices of remembrance

Places of commemoration of the Shoa in Szeged, Hungary

Memorials in Wrocław

The Białystok Ghetto Cemetery as a Setting of Historical-Political Disputes

Return and Redemption

Synagogue, Workers’ University, Cultural Center

Reconstructing for the Future

Lifeworld perspectives

Jewish Postcard Publishers and the Imagery of the Urban

Laima chocolate – a Riga icon

The culinary Ashkenaz

Biographical approaches

Samuel Fränkel

A diary as a companion during his escape in 1936

Hungarian – Communist – Jew?

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