»FIRE! Anti-Jewish Terror on Kristallnacht in November 1938«

25. January 2013
Special exhibition

Ceremonial opening of the exhibition »FIRE!« from left to right: Linde Apel, Head of the »Workshop of Remembrance« Research Centre for Contemporary History Hamburg, Wolfgang Schmidt, Federal Chancellor Willy-Brandt-Foundation, Dr. Bettina Greiner, Head of Willy-Brandt-Haus Lübeck, Dr. Ulrich Baumann, Deputy Director of the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and curator of the exhibition »FIRE!« and Professor Dr. Rolf Verleger of the Jewish Community of Lübeck, in the exhibition »FIRE!« © Thomas Vallbracht

Exhibition - »FIRE!« — Exhibition – »FIRE!«

© Thomas Vallbracht, Willy-Brandt-Haus Lübeck — Dr. Ulrich Baumann with Irmgard Sinner, daughter of Werner Lueben, the former judge at the Reichskriegsgericht. © Thomas Vallbracht

Exhibition

On 9 and 10 November 1938 – more than 1200 synagogues were destroyed in Germany. The extent of the violence marked an unmistakable turning point in the lives of Jews in Germany: they were at the mercy of state power and the population. The special exhibition »FIRE! Anti-Jewish Terror on Kristallnacht in November 1938« approaches this fainting experience through the history of 24 synagogues. Contemporary amateur photographs document their desecration and destruction. Above all, however, she uses larger-than-life photographs from the night of horror to ask about the role of the spectators.
The exhibition gives visitors a new look at the events of November 1938. In addition to the documentation of the attacks against the Jews in the German Reich, their synagogues, shops and apartments, early autobiographical texts from various Jewish communities can be heard acoustically via audio stations. In addition, previously unknown photographs and series of pictures are the focus of the exhibition.

Your questions

Emergence:

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the pogroms of November 1938, the Foundation Neue Synagoge Berlin, the Foundation Topographie des Terrors, and the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe have developed a joint exhibition entitled »FIRE! Anti-Jewish Terror on Kristallnacht in November 1938«.
This exhibition was shown for the first time in the New Synagogue Berlin. From 25 January 2013 to 3 March 2013, it was open to visitors at the Riesa City Museum.

Extension:
Together with its partners, the Foundation Memorial planned to expand the exhibition under the title »FIRE! 75 Years after the Pogroms in November 1938«.

The reason for the expansion was the 75th anniversary of the November pogroms. Under the project management of Dr. Ulrich Baumann (Foundation Memorial), the Foundations Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Topographie des Terrors and Neue Synagoge Berlin – Centrum Judaicum revised and expanded the old exhibition.

It is dedicated to the events in the imperial capital Berlin and shows in 26 examples the architectural diversity of Jewish cultural buildings in Central Europe, their destruction as well as the handling of the synagogues and their ruins after 1938. In this way, it documents developments and the various forms of remembrance in the Federal Republic, the GDR and reunited Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and France, as well as in former German territories belonging to Poland and the Russian Federation.