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The Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin presents the year 1938 through the eyes of Jews, whose personal documents detail their experiences and the hardships they suffered as well as the growing tensions in Europe and diminishing hope for Jews in Germany and Austria.

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29

SATURDAY

29

Religion, culture and the struggle for human dignity

Synagogues adapt to the changing needs of Jewish life.

Berlin

This drawing shows the interior of the Prinzregentenstraße Synagogue in Berlin (Wilmersdorf). Built in 1930, the building was designed to fulfill the needs of a liberal congregation. As shown in the picture, the synagogue boasted a magnificent organ. Rabbi Leo Baeck gave the sermon at the opening ceremony. From 1933, when Jews began to be pushed out of Germany’s cultural life, the synagogue also became a Jewish cultural center.

TAGS: art, Berlin, cultural life, January 29, Jewish Community, prominent people, public sphere, rabbis, religion, segregation, Synagogues

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

"Synagogue Prinzregentenstrasse." Werner Stein Collection, AR 10775

Original:

2005.87

25

TUESDAY

25

Karl Adler’s 48th Birthday

The Jüdisches Lehrhaus Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Born in Buttenhausen, Wuerttemberg on January 25, 1890, Karl Adler studied music at the Stuttgart Conservatory, where he became Director in 1921. He was a cofounder of the Verein zur Förderung der Volksbildung, an adult-education organization, and director of its music department. In 1926, he was among the leading forces that built the Jüdisches Lehrhaus Stuttgart. After his dismissal from his position at the conservatory in 1933, he initiated and directed the Stuttgarter Jüdische Kunstgemeinschaft, a branch of the Kulturbund. In 1935, he became the head of the music department of the Mittelstelle für jüdische Erwachsenenbildung, a division of the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland dealing with adult education.

TAGS: cultural life, January 25, Kulturbund, musicians, persecution of Jewish professionals, photo, prominent people, segregation, Stuttgart

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Leopold Levi Collection, AR 1929

Original:

ALB-OS 19, F 84099

22

SATURDAY

22

Victory of the underdog

The theater of the Berliner Kulturbund features a powerless hero who wins over his antagonist.

Berlin

With Adolphe Adam’s comic opera “If I were King” and Ladislaus Bus-Fekete’s “Cape of Good Hope,” the Berlin Kulturbund offered its guests lighthearted distractions. The Jewish audience in Berlin in 1938 must have been receptive to an opera in which the powerless but honest hero wins and the bad guy gets his well-deserved punishment.

TAGS: advertisement, artists, Berlin, cultural life, January 22, Jewish Community, Kulturbund, musicians, public sphere, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kulturbundbühne (Berlin): Kulturbund deutscher Juden, MF B1080

Original:

Vol. 6, no. 1: 11

14

FRIDAY

14

Staged normalcy

The Berlin Jewish Community: Between practical and intellectual needs

Berlin

The January issue of the Berlin Kulturbund magazine conveys a sense of normalcy—local businesses advertise merchandise and services like cosmetics, women’s apparel and car repairs, while the Kulturbund schedule offers Eugene Scribe’s “The Ladies’ Battle.” The comedy must have provided a welcome respite from the worrisome situation.

TAGS: advertisement, Berlin, cultural life, January 14, Jewish Community, Journalism, Kulturbund, public sphere, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kulturbundbühne (Berlin): Kulturbund deutscher Juden, MF B1080

Original:

Vol. 6, no.1

11

TUESDAY

11

“Who won’t betray us in the end?”

Theater becomes the last cultural resort

Berlin

As German Jews were getting arrested or being forced to leave the country, the performances put on by the local branches of the Jewish Kulturbund (Culture Association) were among the few places of refuge where Jews could enjoy culture as in earlier days. Among other things, in the winter season of 1937/1938 the Jüdischer Kulturbund Berlin performed Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (Director: Dr. Kurt Singer) and Scribe’s The Ladies’ Battle (Director: Fritz Wisten). Since 1935, the Kulturbund’s venue had been the theater at 57 Kommandantenstrasse, the former Herrnfeld Theater, where popular Jewish plays had once been staged.

TAGS: advertisement, artists, Berlin, cultural life, January 11, Jewish Community, Journalism, Kulturbund, musicians, prominent people, public sphere, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Kulturbundbühne (Berlin): Kulturbund deutscher Juden, MF B1080

Original:

Vol. 6, no. 1: 3

9

SUNDAY

9

Where strength and joy flow

A new Jewish Community Center in Hamburg

“We are responsible for the spirits and souls of the people. We cannot let them be crushed by everyday worries and hardship, be beaten down by the running battle of life, or whither away in the close air and restless drudgery.” (p.3)

Hamburg

In his opening speech at the inauguration ceremony for the new Jewish community center in Hamburg, Max M. Warburg, scion of a renowned family of bankers, describes the challenges the community is facing at the present moment and states the mission of the building and its leadership in troubled times. Describing theater as a source not only of “uplift and joy” but also of “moral fortitude,” Warburg declares the community center to be intended first and foremost as a home for the performances of actors and musicians of the Jewish Kulturbund.

TAGS: artists, cultural life, Hamburg, January 9, Jewish Community, Kulturbund, musicians, prominent people, public sphere, segregation, Speech

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Max M. Warburg Collection, AR 1211

7

FRIDAY

7

Improvisation impinged

Werner Dambitsch and his “Excentric [sic] Jazz Orchester”

This ID grants permission to participate in Jewish events. The holder is permitted to work, but the Reich Association does not guarantee employment.   

Breslau/ Berlin

Werner Wilhelm Dambitsch was born on June 23, 1913 in Breslau (today Wroclaw, Poland). Werner was interested in music from an early age, but he had to purchase his first instrument, a saxophone, with money he had earned himself. He did this in 1932 at the age of 19 and founded with four friends the ‘Excentric [sic] Jazz Orchester’. In order to perform, the combo had to join the “Reichsverband der jüdischen Kulturbünde in Deutschland” (Reich Association of Jewish Cultural Federations) and was forced to change the name to “Erstes Jüdisches Jazz-Orchester” (First Jewish Jazz Orchestra). While the association did not guarantee steady income or employment, at least it allowed the artists to perform at events attended by Jewish audiences. This image shows Werner Dambitsch’s Kulturbund membership card.

TAGS: Berlin, Breslau, cultural life, document, ID, January 7, Kulturbund, musicians, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, public sphere, segregation

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Werner Dambitsch Collection, AR 11719

1

SATURDAY

1

Mutual aid for the dispossessed

The Jewish Winter Relief Organization

“No one should suffer hunger and cold. Give to the best of your ability with a joyous heart.”

Berlin

After the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, Jews were excluded from the support of the “Winter Relief Agency of the German People” and had to organize their own relief agency. Nazi legislation was making it more and more difficult for Jews in Germany to earn a living. The Jewish Winter Relief Organization stepped into the breach and assisted impoverished members of the community with food, medicine, and heating fuel. The photo was taken at a concert for the benefit of the Jewish Winter Relief.

TAGS: Berlin, cultural life, impoverishment, January 1, musicians, Nazi laws, Nazi policies, photo, welfare organizations

SOURCE

Institution:

Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin

Collection:

Heinrich Stahl Collection, AR 7171

Original:

F 7401

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