“We have come for free trade...” A different post-war history: The Iranian-Jewish community in Hamburg

The exhibition entitled “We have come for free trade...” A different post-war history: The Iranian-Jewish community in Hamburg uses the example of various family histories of this group to illuminate a different Jewish post-war history, with migration and economic history intertwined and with Hamburg serving as a local and at the same time global point of reference for several decades.

Nothing. Just Leave! Escape from Germany and New Beginnings in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and São Paulo

The exhibition “Nothing. Just Leave!” Escape from Germany and New Beginnings in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and São Paulo focuses on three cities that have so far received little attention as destinations for German-Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany.

Using these three urban areas as examples, the difficult history of the decision to emigrate is traced through to the aftermath of this (family) biographical caesura in today's South America.

Jewish Life since 1945 – Relaunch

The relaunch of our first online exhibition “Jewish Life since 1945” portrays the pluralization of Jewish lifeworlds in the 20th and 21st centuries, with a focus on remigration and migration movements.

By no means without controversy, the first Jewish congregations were established in West Germany immediately after the end of the war, including in Hamburg in the summer of 1945. However, it was to take several decades before Jewish life in Germany could become a matter of course.

Women’s Lives – Work and Impact of Jewish Women in Hamburg

Our seventh online exhibition looks at Jewish women as actors in their respective fields of activity: in the family and at a medical congress, at school and in court, or at the theater and a shipping company. Using ego documents, this exhibit highlights exemplary women’s biographies and their historical significance.

Looking at historical and contemporary women’s biographies and the work of women in various fields opens up new perspectives on Jewish history.

On Board the Ship: “as on another Earth”

The sixth online exhibition focuses on ships and the experiences of three individuals from Hamburg with this maritime space.

Previously unpublished sources by Joseph Carlebach, Ida Dehmel and Ernst Heymann—a rabbi, an art patron and a merchant—make their three intellectual and emotional worlds during the Nazi era visible and illustrate their feelings of being torn between pleasure and dismay, joy and despair, spirit of discovery and fear of the “foreign.”

Children’s Worlds – New Perspectives on the History of Jewish School Life in Hamburg

Our fifth online exhibit, which has been realized in cooperation with the Israelitische Töchterschule Memorial and Educational Center, aims to illuminate the children’s worlds of the former Jewish schools in Hamburg.

Schools are places where identities are constantly being renegotiated. The Jewish schools therefore also tell the story of Hamburg Jews’ search for a place in the city’s society.

(Hi)stories in Images – Jewish Private Photography in the 20th Century

In our fourth online exhibit presented as part of our edition of key documents, we highlight Jewish Private Photography in the 20th Century.

On the basis of selected objects the exhibit is dedicated to the act of photographing (when are which photos taken and why?), the preservation and survival of photographs, and finally the use of photographs as sources for historians. The images were reviewed and arranged into six chapters by Sylvia Necker in the context of her research project “German-Jewish Family Albums and the Narration of Identities from Imperial Germany” at the University of Nottingham.

“A (Life) History between Four Walls” – Max and Frida Salzberg

Our third online exhibit organized as part of the edition of key documents is dedicated to the couple Max and Frida Salzberg

The exhibition highlights the biographies of Max and Frida Salzberg on the basis of selected objects from the apartment kept at the Altona Museum today and supplemented by documents from the couple’s estate preserved in the Hamburg State Archive. At the same time, we aim to provide insights into the Jewish history of Hamburg, into everyday life and home decor during the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era and the postwar period.

Jewish Migration: Location Hamburg

Our second online exhibit organized as part of the edition of key documents is dedicated to the topic of “migration.”

Between 1880 and 1914 more than two million Jews from eastern and east central Europe resettled, mainly in the United States. More than half of all Jewish migrants from eastern Europe to America embarked on their transatlantic voyage in either Hamburg or Bremen.

Jewish Life since 1945

In this first online exhibit presented as part of our edition of key documents, we highlight Jewish history after the Holocaust and National Socialism.

When the first Jewish congregations were formed in West Germany immediately after the end of the war, as was the case in Hamburg in summer 1945, this was by no means uncontroversial. It took several decades, however, until Jewish life in Germany was to became self-evident – both for the Jews living there and for the non-Jewish majority society.