The Forgotten Jewish Architects

Ruth Ellen Gruber writes in her blog about the forgotten Jewish architects, that were active in Germany before 1933:

"Little is known anymore about the more than 450 Jewish architects who were active in Germany before 1933 -- in November of that year, Jews were banned from the state-run artists guild, membership in which was mandatory in order for an architect to work."

“The Jewish architect wanted to show his achievement in the forefront, and to create a new form of building that people would accept,” she told the author of the article, David Sokol.

“Berlin was a living architecture exhibition,” Warhaftig said of the interwar period. “After Weimar, Berlin was flourishing culturally. Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and other modernists were looking for a peaceful and social world, and wished to express their ideas in architecture. I think the majority of Jewish architects chose to settle in Berlin to prove that anti-Semitism would no longer play a role in their lives.”

Jewish architects were active in the modernist movement in many countries."

The website of the Association for Research on the Lives and Works of German-speaking Jewish Architects Gruber links to mentions for example the Roxy-Palast cinema, designed by Martin Punitzer.

The "Cinema Treasures" site writes that
"Opened in 1929, this streamlined Art Deco styled cinema was designed by architect Martin Punitzer and had an original seating capacity of 1,106 located in orchestra and balcony.

It was re-modelled in 1951 by Paul Stohrer and Bruno Meltendorf and the seating capacity was slightly reduced to 998. It closed in 1977 and was converted into a disco club. This was bombed by a terrorist group in 1987 and was immediately closed although the damage done to the building was not too bad.

For many years now the building has been used as a furniture and household goods shop. "

Pictures of the Roxy Palast are available here

The "Reichspogromnacht" debate on "Repeat Offender"

On his blog, "Repeat Offender", Gal Beckermann wrote a long and interesting commentary about the embarassing Bundestag debate, around the declaration denouncing Antisemitism (the article also appeared on NEXTBOOK — November 26, 2008):

"Early last month, the Christian Democrat representative proposed to add—to the standard elegiac language remembering the Holocaust—a clause that instantaneously upended the negotiations: “it must be recalled that Israel was never recognized by East Germany, that Jewish businesspeople were dispossessed by the East German government and had to flee, and that East Germany broke international law by delivering weapons to an anti-Israeli Syria in 1973.”

[...]

From at least 1967, the Communist world was officially anti-Zionist. East Germany, like its Soviet overlord, offered financial and propaganda support to belligerent Arab regimes. Cartoons in newspapers depicted Israeli soldiers as Nazis and the state sheltered PLO militants. The Zionist entity was an imperializing force, an oppressor whose existence should be mercilessly opposed.

[...]

While the Communist East maintained its anti-Zionist position, West Germany spent the post-war years rebuilding international goodwill through the hundreds of millions of dollars it threw at the Jewish state in the 1950s and ’60s."

(It should be noted, at this point, that the PLO and the Arab countries had good relationships with the West, which also sold them weapons - for example, despite Israeli protests, to Egypt in the early 1960s. The government back then was CDU ruled; and because money talks, Germany is doing business with Iran as we write this).

Jewish Berlin Blogsphere, 24 Nov 2008

Juna writes in "Somehow Jewish" about the effort to teach Jewish migrants from the former Soviet Union the German language, as well as their own religion, at the same time. She brings this interesting page from a Cornelsen language book:

(source: http://www.masorti.de/unterricht_image.html)

Kindertransport marks 70th annivesary

The British (and non-British) media has several references this week to the effort to save Jewish-German children from the hands of the Nazis in the "Kindertransport" (children transport).

Harry F. Themal writes in Delaware Online:
"Even as my parents were trying to cut through the bureaucracy, the Nazis perpetrated their murderous and destructive Kristallnacht.

My parents decided to at least save my life and secured me a space on an early Kindertransport, through which England eventually rescued 10,000 children. What courage it took to be separated from their only child, potentially forever. My father wasn't even in Berlin to say goodbye that January day in 1939 because he was at the funeral of his father, who had died of a heart attack.

About three months after I arrived in England, my parents got documents to leave Germany and sail to Cuba as a stopping place on the way to the U.S. I spent three days making my way from London to join them on their boat in Cherbourg, France. I still find it hard to believe an 8-year-old boy could have made that trip alone, but I knew adults must have helped me along the way."

here are some of the stories:
Charles marks Jewish child rescue

Royal visit to Kenton to mark anniversary of war evacuation

On our tours/lectures, you can learn more about the people who were involved in organising the transport; see the memorial to the Kindertransport set in Berlin and hear about some personal stories and testimonials that we have researched.

New Chabad Yeshiva in Berlin

Chabad's website reports of "the first Chabad-Lubavitch yeshiva in Western Europe for Jewish youth who did not grow up in traditional homes." : "Tora Kolleg – it’s pronounced “Torah college” – opened in September at the Rohr Chabad Center, a grand structure that houses a synagogue, restaurant, student and education center, library, Jewish ritual bath and Judaica shop. The yeshiva offers students the chance immerse themselves in a comprehensive study of Jewish texts while completing their secular degrees. Those still in high school can elect to complete their general studies requirement through an affiliated school, while those in university can supplement their secular course load with classes in Torah, Talmud, Jewish law and Jewish mysticism."

What they might neglect to say in their article, is that there one other Orthodox Yeshiva in Berlin (the Beth Zion Yeshiva), as well as Abraham Geiger Kolleg, which trains and ordains Reform Rabbinical Students.

The Chabad House and the place where Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson has lived in Berlin could be visited as part of Jewish-Berlin's Jewish Life in West Berlin and Jewish Life in Tiergarten tour.

More information about Synagogues in Berlin is available on Jewish Berlin as well.