On December 9, 1603, the Hamburg Parliament lodged a complaint with
the Executive Council, that among the Portuguese in the Hansa city
Jews were also to be found. The burgesses, to be sure, acknowledged in
their complaint the economic utility of the Portuguese merchants for
the city, but nonetheless
... Show Source >
In 1639, Diogo de Lima denounced Duarte Esteves de Pina, a Portuguese
Jew living in Hamburg, to the Portuguese Inquisition. The present
source is comprised of the charge (seven handwritten pages) as well as
the testimonies of two witnesses (each four handwritten pages). An
official of the Inquisition
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Numerous handwritten copies of this document have been preserved in
the State Archives of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg in addition to
contemporary printed versions and excerpts from the 17th and 18th
centuries. This alone testifies to its significance. Both the official
original of this “General Privilege”—which
... Show Source >
This excerpt is a passage from a reference work published in 1644 by
the pastor of the church St. Petri in Hamburg, Johannes Müller
(1626–1672), under the title “Judaismus oder Judenthumb”
[“Judaism”]. Over a thousand pages long, this work, intended for a
general audience, was published by Zacharias
... Show Source >
In 1675, in Amsterdam, the Sephardic printer David de Castro Tartas
published ”איין שין נייא ליד / וואש צו
האמבורג איז גישעהן“ [“Ain sche̍n neiʼ lid / waś
zu Hamburg is gėschehe̍n,” “A beautyful song / what happened in
Hamburg”] a western Yiddish song pamphlet in octavo format with four
folio (or eight
... Show Source >
Moments of upheaval are particularly fruitful for excavating the
historical past. The eruption of a cause célèbre affords an
opportunity not only to examine particular ruptures, but also to gain
insights into the structures of social life that are interrupted by
them. The news of the coming of the Messiah
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Although the Ashkenazi Jews in Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbek lived
under different political authorities, since Altona belonged to the
Danish Crown, they formed a congregation known as Kehillat Ah“u from
1671. The sections shown here are part of the statutes of the Jewish
Congregation of Altona dating
... Show Source >
This source deals with an excerpt from the foreword of the Hamburg
edition of the Koran of 1694, published by Abraham Hinckelmann.
Hinckelmann achieved his place in the history books because he
published the first surviving printed Arabic edition of the Koran in
Europe. This happened directly after
... Show Source >
The power struggle that broke out between the Senate and the
Citizens‘ Council of the city at the end of 17th century could, it
was hoped, be resolved with the help of a revised constitution that
would restore political stability. The Imperial Decree for Jews of
1710, the Judenreglement, became a legal
... Show Source >
This excerpt is taken from the book Jüdische Merckwürdigkeiten
[“Jewish Notabilia”] published by the rector of a gymnasium in
Frankfurt am Main, Johann Jacob Schudt, in four volumes between 1714
and 1717. Himself a Lutheran, Schudt illustrates the anti-Judaic
stance typical of this age in his observations
... Show Source >
The present documentary source is a brief excerpt from tax lists of
the early modern period, reproduced in Max Grunwald’s 1904 local
history: “Hamburgs deutsche Juden bis zur Auflösung der
Dreigemeinde 1811” [“Hamburg’s German Jews up to the Dissolution
of the Triple Congregation 1811”]. The tax lists
... Show Source >
This defamatory text against the Jewish physician Simon Lefmans from
the year 1733 is simultaneously a source for the entry of Jews into
German medicine and also for the antisemitic resistance that it
aroused. The text is a sharply tendentious evaluation of a scientific
work by the Jewish physician
... Show Source >
On January 24, 1735, the Sephardic Hamburg merchant Abraham de Lemos
sent the petition presented here to the Prussian King Frederick
William I. In this document Abraham de Lemos petitions the King for
the abrogation of the marriage between his son, Benjamin de Lemos, a
student of medicine at the University
... Show Source >
This source is a two-page excerpt from the minute book (pinkas) of the
Jewish Congregation in Frankfurt (Oder) with entries dating from the
years 1767 and 1771. The minute book documents the activities of the
Congregation between 1754 and 1793. Most of the entries, including
those selected, deal with
... Show Source >
Jitte Glückstadt, an unmarried Jewish woman in Altona, had her last
will and testament recorded on April 8, 1774. A testament (from the
Latin testare, to testify or bear witness to) enables a person to
arrange what is to happen to one’s personal property after death, as
well as the details of the burial
... Show Source >
On March 7, 1789, the authorized Superintendents of the Poor for the
synagogues of the Triple Congregation issued an appeal, in which they
asked for “generous gifts” for the poor on the occasion of the
Purim holiday. The brief appeal is written in the German language and
is held in the Central Archives
... Show Source >
This source deals with the Foreword to the curricular catalogue of the
Academic High School Akademisches Gymnasium of Hamburg (1613-1883)
for the years 1810-1811, also containing a look back at the previous
two years. The Academic High School Akademisches Gymnasium was a
precursor of the University
... Show Source >
On April 26, 1812, the ten members of the Committee of Separation
signed a handwritten document. It would be immediately designated
simply as the “Act of Separation.” The Committee of Separation was
composed equally of members of the Altona and Hamburg Jewish
congregations. Certainly, they had come
... Show Source >
Since 1799 Ludolf Holst (1756–1825) had gained a reputation in
Hamburg as an economic expert. Having studied theology and law, he
worked as a private tutor and was married to women’s rights advocate
Amalia Holst. Since 1799 he devoted himself to economic issues
relevant to Hamburg, a topic on which
... Show Source >
The present source deals with the Foreword to a collection of expert
report entitled Dibere Haberith (Words of the Covenant, DH), that the
three executive board members (Dajanim) of the rabbinic judicial court
of the Hamburg Congregation – Baruch Meyer, Jacob Meyer Jaffe, und
Michel Israel Speyer– published
... Show Source >
The present source consists of a comprehensive treatise (15 printed
pages, approximately 3400 words) laying out the philosophy of
education that first appeared in June 1821 as the program of the
Hamburg Israelite Free School Israelitische Freischule. School
programs in the 19th century customarily
... Show Source >
In 1834, following several anti-Jewish excesses in Hamburg, the Jewish
jurist and native, Gabriel Riesser, commissioned by the Committee for
the Improvement of the Civil Conditions of Israelites Comité zur
Verbesserung der bürgerlichen Verhältnisse der Israeliten, wrote
“Denkschrift über die bürgerlichen
... Show Source >
This German-language text from 1831 was the introduction to the first
edition of the statutes of a Hamburg sick-care society, which seem not
to have been preserved. However, it also preceded the revised statutes
of the same association from 1836, and is discussed below in this
context. The introduction
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This article “Die Israelitische Freischule in Hamburg” [“The
Israelite Free School in Hamburg”] was authored by writer Dr.
Bernhard Heßlein, who lived in Hamburg and later in Berlin. He made
his mark as a writer of works about the history of the Jews in Hamburg
and Berlin. This article consists of three
... Show Source >
When Hamburg's council granted the city's Jews permission to acquire
the right of citizenship The right of self-government; the
precondition for acquiring civic rights was inherited real property,
the swearing of a citizen's oath, and the one-time payment of
"Bürgergeld" [citizenship fee]; members of
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In the summer of 1849, Hoffmann & Campe published a book entitled
“Muttersorgen und Mutterfreuden. Worte der Liebe und des Ernstes
über Kindheitspflege. Von einer Mutter. Mit einer Vorrede vom
Seminardirector Diesterweg“ [“A Mother’s Cares and Joys. Words
of Love and Seriousness about Childhood Care.
... Show Source >
This source documents a resolution passed by the Hamburg city council
and city assembly that largely granted Hamburg’s Jews legal and
economic equality with the city’s other residents. At a meeting of
both the city council and assembly held on February 21, 1849, the
council asked the Erbgesessene Bürgerschaft
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In its edition of April 30, 1849, the Allgemeine Zeitung des
Judenthums (AZJ) published a five and a half-page article from Hamburg
written by physician Dr. Hirsch Marcus Coh(e)n Both spellings are
possible. (1800-1874). The AZJ was the most widely read weekly
newspaper among German Jews. Covering topics
... Show Source >
In June 1862, the satirist Julius Stettenheim published in Hamburg a
four-page lampoon with the title “The Jew-Eater – Hope you Like
it!” It contained a caricature and a seven-stanza poem entitled
“Mad Spook of a Summer Night’s Dream.” The pamphlet was carried
round on poles, proclaimed by its bearers
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On June 22, 1862, Wilhelm Marr published the first edition of his
work, “Der Judenspiegel” [“A Mirror to the Jews”](editions
1-4, 56 pp), with the second through fourth editions appearing within
a few weeks. The fifth edition, which will be quoted from here unless
otherwise noted, was published in the
... Show Source >
This open letter, printed as a brochure, must be seen in conjunction
with the recent achievement of civil equality for Jews in Hamburg in
1860. It documents a related problem, namely the question of whether,
in spite of Emancipation, a separate Jewish welfare system ought to
continue. The authors of
... Show Source >
Three-tiered classicist funerary monument made of sandstone and white
marble, ca. 400x170x100 cm (without foundation). A base made of
Oberkirchen sandstone supports the marble middle section featuring a
frontal mid-relief framed by four Corinthian columns bearing a gabled
roof with six acroteria. The
... Show Source >
On 20 December 1884, the executive board of the Israelite congregation
of Lübeck wrote to the Chief Rabbi of Hamburg, Anschel Stern,
officially appointing him as an honorary member. The positive
developments in Lübeck since the emancipation legislation, above all
the formation of the most important
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This one-page, handwritten ruling is the reply to a request submitted
in 1892 by then 21-year-old Hans Julius Oppenheim. He had asked
permission to use the family name Lübbert-Oppenheim instead of
Oppenheim, his last name until then. The senate approved his name
change, but not in the form he requested:
... Show Source >
In 1894 Mary Antin (born Maryasche Antin) from the Belarusian town of
Polotzk, her mother and three siblings traveled via Hamburg to Boston,
her father already having gone ahead. Immediately after her arrival in
1894, Mary Antin gave an account of her voyage in a letter to her
maternal uncle, Moshe
... Show Source >
This invitation for collecting folklore was the first of its kind in
the Jewish context. The Jewishness of this questionnaire is apparent:
a Magen David symbol of the Henry Jones-Loge of Hamburg at the top of
the front page. Below it, we find a programmatic exposition on the
importance of folklore for
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This source is one of ca. 20,000 reports written by police spies about
conversations they overheard in Hamburg pubs and in public spaces
between the end of 1892 and the end of 1910.
When the Anti-Socialist Law The “Law against the Publicly
Dangerous Endeavors of Social Democracy,” [Sozialistengesetz]
... Show Source >
The source presented here is a speech by Gustav Tuch, president of
Hamburg's Henry-Jones-Lodge, given at the opening ceremony of the new
meeting hall of Hamburg's B'nai B'rith (“Sons of the Covenant”)
chapter on August 28, 1904. The speech is included in a 58-page
Festschrift, a publication commemorating
... Show Source >
On December 10, 1904, the police inspector in charge of HAPAG’s
emigration halls at the port of Hamburg, Wenzel Kilian Kiliszewski,
noticed a man calling himself “Jossl Kalischer.” Claiming to be a
Jewish migrant from the Russian empire, he turned out to be Julius
Kaliski, editor of the Social Democrat’s
... Show Source >
Joseph Berkowitz Kohn’s “memoirs” give an account of the
eventful life of a Jew born in the Polish town of Leczyca in 1841 who
participated in various struggles for emancipation in his homeland. In
1863 Berkowitz Kohn was forced to flee Poland and went to Hamburg,
where he set up his own business as
... Show Source >
This appeal is part of the files on the administration and
organization of the Jewish congregations of Altona, Hamburg, and
Wandsbek, which are housed at the State Archive Hamburg. Among these
files (signature 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 1691-1945, lot 887
“Jüdische Bibliothek und Lesehalle 1908[!]-1928”)
... Show Source >
The weekly newspaper “Jüdische Rundschau” [Jewish Review] was the
press organ of the “Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland”
(ZVfD) [Zionist Association for Germany], the German national
association of the Zionist Organization (ZO). In issue 14/15 of 1906,
the executive committee of the Zionist local
... Show Source >
The business reports of the Aid Organization of German Jews
Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden were published annually since 1902
and documented in great detail the emigration trends among eastern
European and especially Russian and Galician Jews. In the appendix to
the sixth business report presented
... Show Source >
In November 1908 the executive committee of the “Zionistischen
Ortsgruppe Hamburg-Altona” [Zionist chapter Hamburg-Altona] hosted a
lecture: Pastor Otto Eberhard, who was presented as “one of the
leading experts on the modern cultural state of Palestine,” was to
speak on the ninth of the month on the
... Show Source >
In November 1908 the executive committee of the “Zionistischen
Ortsgruppe Hamburg-Altona” [Zionist chapter Hamburg-Altona] hosted a
lecture: Pastor Otto Eberhard, who was presented as “one of the
leading experts on the modern cultural state of Palestine,” was to
speak on the ninth of the month on the
... Show Source >
The Hall of Mirrors was installed in 1909 in a villa built in 1884 by
Martin Haller. Henry and Emma Budge had bought the villa around 1900
and commissioned the Hamburg architect to expand it into a palais. The
Jewish couple used the banqueting hall to host balls, concerts, and
charity events. Three
... Show Source >
In November 1908 the executive committee of the “Zionistischen
Ortsgruppe Hamburg-Altona” [Zionist chapter Hamburg-Altona] hosted a
lecture: Pastor Otto Eberhard, who was presented as “one of the
leading experts on the modern cultural state of Palestine,” was to
speak on the ninth of the month on the
... Show Source >
The Jüdische Turnzeitung. Monatsschrift für die körperliche Hebung
der Juden [Jewish Gymnasts' Paper. Monthly Publication for the
Physical Improvement of the Jews] was the central organ of the Jewish
Gymnasts' Association Jüdische Turnerschaft, the umbrella
organization of national-Jewish sports clubs.
... Show Source >
Over a period of 11 years, from May 31, 1902 until March 31, 1913,
HAPAG’s general director, Albert Ballin, kept a hand-written
notebook in which he listed the names of guests visiting his city
apartment at Hamburg’s Badestraße 23 (beginning in 1902), his
country house in Hamfelde near Trittau (as of
... Show Source >
Founded in 1893, the Israelite-Humanitarian Women’s Association
Israelitisch-humanitärer Frauenverein advocated for women’s
rights as well as social policy issues in Hamburg and explicitly
addressed a Jewish audience. The source presented here is a printed
copy of the association’s by-laws of March
... Show Source >
The following source, a court decision ordering a child into
correctional education, stems from the file of Sarah Blumenau Names
have been changed, the daughter of a fashion saleswoman named Tanja B.
and a legal councilor named W. born out of wedlock in Hamburg in 1897,
who was sent to a reform school.
... Show Source >
Providing pastoral care for Jewish prisoners in the Fuhlsbüttel
prison was common practice since the late 19th century, but the legal
basis for it was only created with this agreement of January 1914. The
two-page agreement between the German-Israelite congregation and
Hamburg’s treasury office, which
... Show Source >
This letter by Jacob H. Schiff of New York, who was born in Frankfurt
in 1847 and had emigrated to the United States in 1865, to Max M.
Warburg in Hamburg was written with the events and political
constellations in mind which had formed since the outbreak of the
First World War in Europe in the summer
... Show Source >
This text titled “The Jews in the Army” was written by Alfred
Roth, who concealed his identity by using the pseudonym Otto Armin, a
combination of the first names of his two sons. It was published in
early 1920 by Munich-based Deutscher Volks-Verlag and had a print run
of 10,000 copies. The publishing
... Show Source >
Few personal records of Agathe Lasch have survived. Therefore, her
two handwritten CVs, which are preserved in the State Archives in
Hamburg, are all the more valuable. The first one is handwritten but
not dated; the second one is a typewritten two-part version, dated and
signed in Agathe Lasch’s own
... Show Source >
This February 1921 call for donations for the establishment of a
memorial cemetery for Jews who had died in the First World War, which
was to be located at the Jewish Ilandkoppel cemetery (Ohlsdorf), met
with broad support from community institutions and the three religious
associations. Among the signatories
... Show Source >
The collection of Hamburg’s Research Centre for Contemporary History
Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte contains numerous examples of
antisemitic poster stamps printed from 1919 to 1922 by the large
organization German Nationalist Protection and Defiance Federation
(DSTB) Deutschvölkischer Schutz-
... Show Source >
In 1923, Rahel Plaut became the first woman to habilitate at the
Medical Faculty in Hamburg and the third woman ever to do so in
Germany, with a thesis on isometric contractions in skeletal muscle.
In this excerpt from her 1922 diary, she describes her attendance of
the 34th Congress of the German Society
... Show Source >
This rabbinical opinion by Rabbi Moses Jehuda Hoffmann on the question
of women’s right to vote was written in May 1923 at the request of
Hamburg’s German-Israelite Synagogue
Association [Deutsch-Israelitischer Synagogenverband]. Rabbinical
opinions are written in order to decide arguments regarding
... Show Source >
Anita Rée’s 1925 painting “White Trees in Positano” can be
considered the most important work from her years in Italy. In the
early 1920s the Hamburg painter had spent several years in the Italian
village of Positano. During her time there she studied the
architecture of this mountain village, its landscape
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This photograph, showing the “Corina” wedding gown, is taken from
the official website of Israeli fashion designer Galia Lahav
(https://www.galialahav.com/bridal/couture/le-secret-royal/corina/).
The princess-like tiara, the corset with floral embellishments, and
the voluminous tulle skirt are staged
... Show Source >
The model design (fig.) for the extension of the Israelite Hospital
(IK) in Hamburg in 1928 reflected the results and apex of a highly
successful development since the hospital’s opening in 1843. In the
founding and planning phase that had begun in 1839, Salomon Heine, in
addition to the hospital commission,
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This portrait shows the Hamburg physician Eugen Fraenkel. His facial
expression is serious, the forehead is marked by deep wrinkles, his
moustache is accurate, and he gazes at the beholder through a pair of
pince-nez. He wears a distinguished suit (black jacket, beige vest)
with dark tie and white shirt
... Show Source >
This announcement from the Israelitisches Familienblatt [Israelite
Family Paper] no. 38, September 20, 1928, supplement “Aus alter und
neuer Zeit” [“Times Old and New”] no. 27, is more than just an
advertisement calling for participation in a contest by stressing the
valuable prizes to be won. For it
... Show Source >
This source is an obituary first published by the art historian Erwin
Panofsky in the Hamburger Fremdenblatt on 28.10.1929 following his
elder colleague Aby Warburg’s death on 26.10.1929. However, it is
more than the record of an art historian’s life. Born in Hannover in
1892, and educated in Berlin,
... Show Source >
This selection of sources—a total of five documents—is taken from
the files of Hamburg’s administration of abattoirs and livestock
markets. The official files document part of the correspondence
between the heads of the Deputation for, Commerce, Shipping, and Trade
Deputation für Handel, Schiffahrt
... Show Source >
This selection of sources—a total of five documents—is taken from
the files of Hamburg’s administration of abattoirs and livestock
markets. The official files document part of the correspondence
between the heads of the Deputation for, Commerce, Shipping, and Trade
Deputation für Handel, Schiffahrt
... Show Source >
This postcard was sold in souvenir shops in the Baltic resort of
Zinnowitz alongside the usual souvenir postcards. Tourists of an
antisemitic bent could send them to likeminded people as a greeting or
use it to sing along when the Zinnowitz resort band played the song at
the finale of each concert.
... Show Source >
This selection of sources—a total of five documents—is taken from
the files of Hamburg’s administration of abattoirs and livestock
markets. The official files document part of the correspondence
between the heads of the Deputation for, Commerce, Shipping, and Trade
Deputation für Handel, Schiffahrt
... Show Source >
This selection of sources—a total of five documents—is taken from
the files of Hamburg’s administration of abattoirs and livestock
markets. The official files document part of the correspondence
between the heads of the Deputation for, Commerce, Shipping, and Trade
Deputation für Handel, Schiffahrt
... Show Source >
This selection of sources—a total of five documents—is taken from
the files of Hamburg’s administration of abattoirs and livestock
markets. The official files document part of the correspondence
between the heads of the Deputation for, Commerce, Shipping, and Trade
Deputation für Handel, Schiffahrt
... Show Source >
The statutes of the Franz Rosenzweig Memorial Foundation of November
1930 were kept very brief. They read like a note for the files with a
five-point program. Their content combined programmatic goals and
specific steps with as yet little defined institutional directives.
The intellectual life of Hamburg's
... Show Source >
Until 1933, Hamburg-based Hertha Herrmann (1897–1970)) was a
respected sports journalist and a passionate motorcycle sportswoman in
her spare time. In the early 1930s, she was considered Germany’s
most successful female motorcyclist. At the end of 1937, she was
attacked and mistreated by SA men; shortly
... Show Source >
“Little Playhouse [Kleines Schauspielhaus]—Friedrich Lobe,
Director —1932/1933 Season” sits in elegant silver font on the
square black 32-page brochure that was printed in Hamburg in August
1932 and is now held in the State and University Library. A drawing of
the auditorium on the first page, “after
... Show Source >
This flyer was published by the Hamburg chapter of the Central
Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith Centralverein
deutscher Staatsbüger jüdischen Glaubens and distributed on April
13, 1932 as a supplement to the newspaper Hamburger Fremdenblatt,
which had a print run of ca. 150,000 copies. In
... Show Source >
This radio address by Karl Kaufmann, NSDAP Gauleiter in Hamburg, which
was broadcast on March 29, 1933 by Norddeutscher Rundfunk, was part of
a nationwide campaign which culminated in the “boycott against
Jews” of April 1, 1933. His address provides insight into the
National Socialist image of “the
... Show Source >
This source is a letter published by the sports club “Schild” run
by the Hamburg chapter of the German-Jewish War Veterans’
Association Vaterländischer Bund jüdischer Frontsoldaten e. V.. It
appeals to all male and female Jewish athletes to join the newly
founded sports club “Schild.” Although sports
... Show Source >
Shortly after the National Socialist takeover, the Association of
Statutory Health Insurance Physicians Kassenärztliche Vereinigung
and the medical association began compiling lists of those physicians
considered “Jewish” or “non-Aryan.” These lists were not
public, but were shared with welfare offices,
... Show Source >
The source presented here is a 1935 photo essay about the Hamburg
shipping company Fairplay and its owner, Lucy Borchardt. It introduces
the shipping company's owner as an important member of Hamburg's
Jewish community while emphasizing the fact that the well-reputed
company Fairplay was headed by a
... Show Source >
This double page is taken from the Zionist young adult book “Die
Jungen vom Gusch” [“The Boys from the Gush”] written by Bernhard
Gelbart and published in 1936 by the Berlin-based Kedem Verlag. The
125-page novel is addressed to youths. The excerpt presented here
describes a meeting of a Zionist youth
... Show Source >
Paul Dessau’s scenic oratorio “Hagadah” based on a text by Max
Brod is the most important work of this Hamburg-born composer from the
early period of his emigration to France, during which he recalled his
Jewish roots and placed himself at the service of the Zionist
movement. The traces of a complicated
... Show Source >
Letters of recommendation combine the personal micro-level with the
macro-level of social habits and circumstances in a given time period.
This two-page letter of March 5, 1936 for the sociologist Siegfried
Landshut which his former supervisor Eduard Heimann sent from his New
York exile to [Hans] Kohn
... Show Source >
The patron of the arts, Ida Dehmel (1870–1942), kept a diary during
her round the world trip on board the cruiser “Reliance”in 1936.
On June 11, 1936, upon her return home to Blankenese, she jotted down
an addendum. On this final page she describes the sense of happiness
which she felt on the sea and
... Show Source >
veröffentlicht 1937, entstanden zwischen 1931-1937,
Hamburg
This black and white photograph of the interior of the Temple at
Oberstraße was published in 1937. It was taken by Erich Kastan, a
photographer of Jewish origin who lived in Hamburg at the time. The
image presents an overview of the space including the essential
elements of a synagogue: the floor-to-ceiling
... Show Source >
These five drawings published in different issues of the Gemeindeblatt
[Congregation Newsletter] and the Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für das
Gebiet der Hansestadt Hamburg [Jewish Congregation Newsletter for the
Area of the Hanse City of Hamburg] solicited donations for the Jewish
Winter Relief in the winter
... Show Source >
During the final days of October 1938, the “Third Reich”
implemented its first systematically organized deportation of Jewish
residents from German cities in an event known as the Polenaktion.
Cantor Joseph Cysner was one of 900 Hamburg Jews deported at that
time. His memoirs offer a rare testimony
... Show Source >
On six pages of a notepad, kindergarten teacher Eva Warburg wrote
down the names of some of the children enrolled at the Jewish day care
center at Jungfrauenthal 37 in Hamburg, which she ran, who were to be
evacuated abroad in late 1938 in view of the increasing persecution of
Jews. The page shown here
... Show Source >
The founding of the Jewish community center and its opening ceremony
in the Hamburg neighborhood of Rotherbaum on January 9, 1938 was an
unmistakable sign of self-assertion and spiritual resistance. It was
reflected in the inaugural speech given by banker Max Moritz Warburg,
both in his words and between
... Show Source >
This photo was published in the newspaper Hamburger Anzeiger on
November 1st, 1938. It shows an older man in work clothes and peaked
cap with a street sign reading “Hallerstrasse,” which he has just
removed, tucked under his left arm. He is looking at the new sign
reading “Ostmarkstrasse” he has just
... Show Source >
This is an excerpt from a cabaret program broadcast monthly by various
radio stations under the title “Rulands-Eck.” A trio of singers
who called themselves “The Three Rulands” [“Die Drei Rulands”]
were responsible for writing the program. This episode of
“Rulands-Eck” which was broadcast by the Reichssender
... Show Source >
This ca. one pagelong memorandum written by the Hamburg school
administration authority and dated November 24, 1938 records a
statement by Arthur Spier, director of the Talmud Torah School and the
Israelitischer Gemeindeverband Hamburg's Association of Israelite
Communities in Hamburg delegate for
... Show Source >
On May 13, 1939, the HAPAG liner ST. LOUIS left the port of Hamburg
with the destination Havana (Cuba). On board was 17-year-old Fritz
Buff (1921-2017). He had embarked on the voyage without any relatives
and summarized his experiences in an eleven-page travel report. The
document is divided into three
... Show Source >
Betty Levy, a native of Melsungen in Hessen, emigrated to South Africa
in February 1940. To this end, leading up to her emigration, she
stayed with relatives in Hamburg for the time being. Starting in
November 1939, she thus underwent the prescribed emigration approval
proceedings conducted by the Foreign
... Show Source >
On October 25, 1941, the first train rolled from Hamburg to the Lodz
Ghetto. The day before, about 1,000 Hamburg Jews, who were scheduled
for deportation according to the transport list, had to report to the
former lodge house on Moorweidenstraße. In the coming weeks (November
8 and 18; December 6,
... Show Source >
On December 9, 1941, Alfred Borchardt, a Hamburg Jew, wrote a letter
to the Hamburg Historical Museum Museum für Hamburgische
Geschichte. In it he addresses several aspects of the National
Socialist policy of persecution directed at the Jews. First, he
enquires about the possibility of allowing Jews
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Helen Rosenau was an art historian and archaeologist who had to flee
Germany for England in 1933 after the Nazis came to power. After her
emigration, she, like numerous other Jewish scholars, found herself in
a precarious situation. In her publications, a clear political
positioning now became visible
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The diary covers the period of two years and seven months. It consists
of three octavo notebooks: The first entry in notebook 1 was made
between March 6 and March 11, 1943 (undated); Notebook 2 begins with a
note dated November 15, 1943; Notebook 3 starts on August 1, 1945 and
ends with an entry dated
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Following the November pogrom of 1938, the situation of the Jewish
population worsened dramatically, and the majority of Hamburg's Jews
left their hometown. James Iwan Wolf (1893-1981), son of Leopold Wolf
and a member of the famous Wolf Brothers, was one of about 500 to 700
Jewish emigrants from Hamburg
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The document possibly most significant for Friedrich Wilhelm
Lübbert’s life (and survival) is dated October 17, 1944 and signed
by “General der Flieger und Chef des Ministeramts Reichsmarschall”
Karl Bodenschatz. In it he confirms that Friedrich Wilhelm Lübbert, a
businessman of Jewish ancestry, was
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The document presented here contains a statistical table listing the
number of Jews remaining in Hamburg in the final days of the National
Socialist regime. Statistics like this one were compiled about every
other week for the Gestapo in Hamburg and were forwarded to the Berlin
headquarters of the Reich
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On July 8, 1945, a Sunday, twelve Hamburg Jews gathered in the
apartment of Chaim Golenzer at Rutschbahn 25a, a so-called
“Judenhaus,” with the intention to reorganize the congregation
that had previously been eradicated by the National Socialist regime.
They were all former members of Hamburg's German-Israelite
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The 1946 portfolio of lithographs by Hungarian-Jewish artist Ágnes
Lukács titled “Auschwitz Nöi Tábor” (The Auschwitz Women's
Camp) includes an image of a group of women standing closely together,
holding each other as if to warm or comfort one another. Those at the
outside of the group try to get as
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After the end of the Second World War only few Jewish men and women
returned from exile to Germany. The same is true for the media sector
which was to be newly organized under the supervision of the
respective Allied occupation forces after the collapse of the “Third
Reich.” Walter Albert Eberstadt
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This 1947 photograph shows a grieving woman whose figure fills out the
entire picture. She wears a frock made of burlap, the preferred
substitute cloth for theater costumes during the postwar period, which
also used to be worn by penitents; her hairstyle meanwhile alludes to
ancient times. Her body
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On May 2, 1947 Oberregierungsrat Fritz Klesper, head of the Hamburg
State Office for Property Administration [Hamburger Landesamt für
Vermögenskontrolle] (in charge of the administration of former
National Socialist property and processing of “compensation” and
restitution payments) which had only been
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In the course of the administration of assets expropriated by the
National Socialists, the British military government set itself the
goal of specifying the property control that had already begun in
1946, which also included the expropriated assets of persons
persecuted by the Nazis. On October 20,
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Three years after the end of Second World War, on September 13, 1948,
Heinrich Alexander, a Berlin Jew who survived the war in emigration
wrote this letter to the head of Hamburg’s Jewish congregation. In
his brief letter he explained that he did not want to remain in Berlin
and asked Harry Goldstein,
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The case of Siegfried Landshut, one of the founders of German
political science after the war, who had been trying to be re-employed
at the University of Hamburg since the late 1940s, was an exception,
as in his case the lengthy and once again stressful procedure for
re-employment was ultimately successful.
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Three years after the end of Second World War, on September 13, 1948,
Heinrich Alexander, a Berlin Jew who survived the war in emigration
wrote this letter to the head of Hamburg’s Jewish congregation. In
his brief letter he explained that he did not want to remain in Berlin
and asked Harry Goldstein,
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The black-and-white photograph shows the façade of the administrative
building of the Jewish Congregation in Hamburg (JGH) at
Rothenbaumchaussee 38. An unknown photographer took the picture
diagonally from the front yard, so that the neighboring building on
the left is also visible. In the center of
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Hannah Arendt, a Jewish intellectual who had fled to the United States
in 1941, wrote this field report during her first trip back to Germany
after the war. In contrast to her now famous account “The Aftermath
of Nazi Rule. Report from Germany,” her field report directly
mentions the circumstances which
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The case of Siegfried Landshut, one of the founders of German
political science after the war, who had been trying to be re-employed
at the University of Hamburg since the late 1940s, was an exception,
as in his case the lengthy and once again stressful procedure for
re-employment was ultimately successful.
... Show Source >
The case of Siegfried Landshut, one of the founders of German
political science after the war, who had been trying to be re-employed
at the University of Hamburg since the late 1940s, was an exception,
as in his case the lengthy and once again stressful procedure for
re-employment was ultimately successful.
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In an article titled “Wiedersehen mit Hamburg” [Return to
Hamburg], writer, translator and literary agent Grete Berges, who
exiled from Germany in 1936, describes her return to the city from
which she was expelled by the National Socialists. Seventeen years
have passed between her escape and her return
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The case of Siegfried Landshut, one of the founders of German
political science after the war, who had been trying to be re-employed
at the University of Hamburg since the late 1940s, was an exception,
as in his case the lengthy and once again stressful procedure for
re-employment was ultimately successful.
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It was probably in 1956 that plans made by Hamburg's Jewish
congregation, re-established in 1945, for building a new synagogue
with a community center at Hohe Weide became concrete. In order to
find an architect and an appropriate design, the congregation held a
competition. The plan presented here
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In the mid-1950s, the Jewish congregation in Hamburg, which had been
reestablished in 1945, began to think about building a new home for
the elderly. At the same time, their plans to build a new synagogue at
Hohe Weide became more concrete. In contrast to this new building, for
which the congregation
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In early 1957, Hamburg timber merchant Friedrich Nieland distributed a
39-page brochure titled “How Many World (Money) Wars Must the
Peoples of the World Lose? Open Letter to All Government Ministers and
Members of Parliament of the Federal Republic.” The brochure was
published with a print run of 2,000
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This newspaper article titled “Gespräch mit Arnold Bernstein”
[“A Conversation with Arnold Bernstein”] covers the life and work
of the German-Jewish shipping company owner from Hamburg. The
interview was conducted by an unknown author – who is only
identified by his initials, A. S. – for the Sonntagsblatt
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The study “Sephardic Jews on the Lower Elbe” published by Franz
Steiner Verlag in 1958 as volume 40 of their supplement to the
academic journal Vierteljahresschrift für Sozial- und
Wirtschaftsgeschichte (edited by Hermann Aubin) may be considered a
central contribution to Hamburg’s Jewish history of
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On May 7, 1958 Ludwig Berger, a once celebrated theater director and
author largely forgotten today, gave a commemorative address at
Hamburg’s Musikhalle as part of the “Brahms Festwoche” festival
held on the occasion of Johannes Brahms’ 125th birthday. Berger’s
roughly 60-minute long speech was distributed
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When the foundation stone of the new synagogue was laid on November 9,
1958, Hamburg’s mayor, Max Brauer, was present to give a speech.
Hamburg’s first synagogue of the postwar period was built at Hohe
Weide. Previously the small Jewish congregation had to hold prayer
services in provisional prayer
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This article, written by an anonymous journalist for the Swedish daily
newspaper Dagens Nyheter (Daily News), was published on the 20th
commemoration of the November Pogroms on November 10, 1958. It is now
located in the digital archive of Kungliga Biblioteket (The National
Library of Sweden). Under
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The untitled photograph depicts the living room of the Goldberg
family's vacation home, which was built in 1961 not far from the
Uruguayan capital Montevideo in Pinamar. The interior design of the
room corresponds to the purist design vocabulary of the 1960s. The
pictured room opens to the pine forests
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This excerpt from the autobiographical notes by Rabbi Dr. Jacob
(Jakob) Sonderling (1878-1964), who worked in Hamburg between 1908 and
1922/23, provides insight into a life shaped by migration and the
search for belonging. Those aspects in Sonderling’s transnational
biography which are closely linked
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This source consists of four machine typed letters of one or two pages
dating from the period between April and August 1964. A fifth and last
letter that contained selected press articles was sent in September
1964. Copies are kept in two locations: the Helmut Schmidt archive at
the Archiv der sozialen
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This source consists of four machine typed letters of one or two pages
dating from the period between April and August 1964. A fifth and last
letter that contained selected press articles was sent in September
1964. Copies are kept in two locations: the Helmut Schmidt archive at
the Archiv der sozialen
... Show Source >
This source consists of four machine typed letters of one or two pages
dating from the period between April and August 1964. A fifth and last
letter that contained selected press articles was sent in September
1964. Copies are kept in two locations: the Helmut Schmidt archive at
the Archiv der sozialen
... Show Source >
This source consists of four machine typed letters of one or two pages
dating from the period between April and August 1964. A fifth and last
letter that contained selected press articles was sent in September
1964. Copies are kept in two locations: the Helmut Schmidt archive at
the Archiv der sozialen
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The P. Walter Jacob Archive, part of the Walter A. Berendsohn Research
Center for German Exile Literature, houses a part of Berendsohn’s
estate which includes his extensive correspondence. This handwritten
draft of a two-page letter Berendsohn wrote or sent on September 1st,
1965 in Bromma, Sweden,
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In 1975, Käthe Starke-Goldschmidt published her memoirs The author
published under her married name Starke, which she used from the late
1940s. In reference to other publications and for better readability,
she will be called Käthe Starke-Goldschmidt in the following. of her
time in the Theresienstadt
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Over the course of two years from 1978 until 1980, Ruben Maleachi
published his impressions of several prewar synagogues and the
different practices of the Jewish communities in Hamburg in German in
the Mitteilungen des Verbandes ehemaliger Breslauer und Schlesier in
Israel News of the Association
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This letter, dated 12 July, 1983, was written by Salomo / Solomon A.
Birnbaum to Peter Freimark in Hamburg. Prof. Dr. Peter Freimark, then
Director of the Institute for the History of the German Jews
Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden in Hamburg, was
researching the situation in Hamburg
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On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 1938 November pogroms,
the city of Hamburg on November 9, 1988 dedicated the “synagogue
monument” designed as a walk-in space by artist Margrit Kahl
(1942-2009). Located in the Grindelviertel in the Rotherbaum
neighborhood within Eimsbüttel district, the
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This official rating certificate for the film “The Rose Garden”
issued by the German Motion Picture Rating Agency Deutsche
Filmbewertungsstelle in Wiesbaden is in the collection of the German
Film Institute’s Deutsches Filminstitut, or Dif e.V. Artur Brauner
Archives in Frankfurt a.M. It was issued
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When the conflict about the planned construction on the site of the
Jewish cemetery in Ottensen was already in full swing, the German
Rabbinical Conference in November 1991 issued an opinion. They judged
the construction project as a clear violation of Halakhic law and
demanded that all work on the
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The source presented is an excerpt from a life history interview given
by Steffi Wittenberg (1926-2015) on January, 5 and 8 and 19 July 1995
for the Workshop of Memory Werkstatt der Erinnerung, the oral history
archive of the Research Centre for Contemporary
History Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte
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This is an excerpt from an oral history interview with Esther Bauer
conducted on November 20, 1998 by Jens Michelsen for Workshop of
Memory (WdE) Werkstatt der Erinnerung, the Oral History Archive run
by the Research Centre for Contemporary History Forschungsstelle
für Zeitgeschichte. It is the second
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“Moses Pipenbrink’s Adventures” is one of the first novels with
Zionist tendencies written for Jewish children in the German-speaking
world. Published ten years before Erich Kästner’s Emil und die
Detektive [Emil and the Detectives] (Berlin, 1929), it is also an
early example of modern German children’s
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This source is a short article of fifty-four lines that was published
in the newsletter of Hamburg's Jewish congregation on the occasion of
the Joseph Carlebach School's reopening in the fall of 2007. Its
author is the journalist and writer Daniel Killy, who also was the
Jewish congregation's spokesperson
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This photograph shows six stumbling stones Stolpersteine embedded in
the pavement in front of the residential building at Brahmsallee 13 by
artist Gunter Demnig on July 22, 2007. The brass plate-covered
concrete cubes measuring 10 x 10 cm remember three Jewish couples who
lived at this address: Gretchen
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These two sequences sequence I: 0:35:36–0:36:59 and sequence II:
0:43:49–0:45:44 from an interview with Rachel Dror discuss her
experiences during and after the pogroms in Hamburg, where she was
part of a group of Jewish youths preparing for life in Palestine, and
also her subsequent return to her parental
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This photograph, showing the “Corina” wedding gown, is taken from
the official website of Israeli fashion designer Galia Lahav
(https://www.galialahav.com/bridal/couture/le-secret-royal/corina/).
The princess-like tiara, the corset with floral embellishments, and
the voluminous tulle skirt are staged
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The history of the synagogue of the Portuguese congregation Neve
Shalom in Hamburg-Altona and its destruction in 1940 can only be
reconstructed in fragments since only few written and pictorial
sources exist. It was consecrated in 1771 in a backyard in what was
then Bäckerstraße (today: Hoheschulstraße)
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The Orthodox Rabbinical Conference of Germany (ORD) published a guide
in March 2020 and distributed it by e-mail to its members. In view of
the forthcoming Passover celebration in the year 5780 / 2020, this
guideline is about recommendations for the purchase of food not marked
with the special kosher
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