Close Encounters

Fighting for the Fatherland

Freud's Jewish World

Hermann Struck

Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618-1945

Marta Eggerth

Richard Sonnenfeldt

Richard Sonnenfeldt: "Mehr als ein Leben"

Richard Sonnenfeldt, chief interpreter and youngest member of the American prosecution team at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, has just completed an extraordinary memoir. Beginning with his escape from Nazi Germany at age 15 to his schooling in England, his deportation to Australia, and his arrival in New York via Bombay, South Africa, and Cuba, this is an amazing story.

Mr. Sonnenfeldt spoke to all defendants and most key witnesses in the Nuremburg Trials. As chief of the interpretation section, he had conversations with everyone from Hermann Goering to Hitler's secretary.

Returning to America after the war, Mr. Sonnfeldt studied electric engineering at John Hopkins University. He became a principal developer of color television, computer and space electronics, and received 35 U.S. patents.

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Freud's Jewish World Conference

YIVO, LBI and The Freud Archives invited an outstanding group of academics and psychoanalysts to consider Freud in the context of his upbringing, including the bourgeois culture of Vienna in the early 20th century, the anti-Semitism of central Europe, and the overall anxiety of his time.

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A performance by Marta Eggerth

Marta Eggerth was a child prodigy and remains a wonder of the 21st century. She was already one of the most popular stars of operetta movies in Germany and Austria when she made a film with the dashing singer and actor, Jan Kiepura. They fell in love, were married, and were welcomed through out Europe as a dazzling pair. After the Nazis came to power Marta’s Jewish extraction became an issue, leading them to emigrate to the United States. All these years later, Ms. Eggerth has not lost her voice, her glamour, or her popularity, still singing to sold-out audiences. Leo Baeck Institute is delighted to host this concert for Ms. Eggerth.

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Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618-1945,

Edited by Professor Marion Kaplan. German (C.H. Beck Verlag, 2003), English (Oxford University Press, 2005), and Hebrew (The Zalman Shazar Center, 2008)

Book presentation with lectures by the four contributing authors:

This book portrays the drama of German-Jewish history by examining the everyday lives of ordinary Jews. It traces the gradual ascent of Jews scattered throughout Germany, in rural areas as well as in more urban ghettos, from impoverished outcasts to comfortable bourgeois citizens, and their dramatic descent during the Nazi era. Using a wide variety of original sources, the authors focus on the qualitative aspects of ordinary life – emotions, impressions, and perceptions that provide insights easily overlooked in more traditional studies.

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Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close encounters in occupied Germany

(Princeton University Press, 2007)
Lecture and book signing by Atina Grossmann, Professor of History at Cooper Union in New York.

In the aftermath of World War II, Postwar Germany was teeming with homecoming soldiers, liberated slave laborers, Jews released from hiding, remnants of the Red Army and American soldiers. Atina Grossmann has recreated the complexities of life in Berlin in the days following Germany’s surrender, specifically how Jewish survivors began to reconstruct their identities in order to start new lives.

Professor Grossmann's previous books include Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920 – 1950 (1995) and Crimes of War: Guilt and Denial in the Twentieth Century (2002).

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Hermann Struck (Chaim Aaron ben David, 1876-1944) was known for his portraits of prominent Europeans as well as for landscapes encountered during his numerous travels.  An early Zionist, Struck was among the first German Zionists to move to Palestine in1923, settling in Haifa.

This exhibit presents Struck’s work in the context of the emerging modern art movements in Germany and Palestine. On display will also be works by Max Liebermann, Josef Israels, Lesser Ury and Jacob Steinhardt. A rare collection of oil paintings and watercolors depicting Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s will also be shown along with photos, letters and publications by and about this modern master whose influence on 20th century art is only now beginning to be recognized.  

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Fighting for the Fatherland: The Patriotism of Jews in World War I

Ninety years ago the world witnessed one of the deadliest military confrontations in human history. World War I changed what was thinkable about human brutality and opened a door for the destruction of European Jewry only two decades later. But at the beginning of the First World War German and Austrian Jews were among the first to show their patriotism. This exhibition of photos, letters, artwork, documents and other rare artifacts will show the extent to which Jewish citizens fought for the Fatherland.

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Goldscheider – A World Brand from Vienna: Commerce and Art in an Age of Transformation

From its founding in Vienna in 1885 until 1938, the Goldscheider Manufactory was the leading international ceramics producer in Europe with subsidiaries in Paris, Leipzig, and Florence. Its high quality decorative objects were sought by collectors around the world. The pieces encompassed a large variety of styles; more than 10,000 models were in production by the time the company was forcibly Aryanized by the Nazis.

The exhibit at Leo Baeck Institute features Goldscheider pieces from the private collection of Kathryn Hausman, president of the Art Deco Society, New York. Her collection focuses on the beauty of the 1920’s Art Deco Woman. The objects are presented within the post-1848 historical context of Vienna, a time marked by the decline of the Habsburg monarchy and profound innovations in the arts, the sciences, industry and commerce. It was a time of new opportunities, especially for Jews, which led to increasing resentment among the petty bourgeoisie, eventually becoming the breeding ground for right-wing radicalism and anti-Semitism.

The Goldscheider ceramics are displayed along with documents, artwork, photos, and books from the LBI collections, items that illuminate the political and social transformations taking place throughout Central Europe. Many of these developments enabled Jewish business owners like the Goldscheiders to thrive, before being reviled by the Nazis. The saga of the Goldscheider Manufactory reflects the history of an age.

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