Stone-Light-Word-Image: The local anniversary of pogroms in Bonhoeffer Year 2006
While the national-level news on the 78th anniversary of the 1938 Reichskristallnacht anti-Jewish pogroms focused on the activity of right-win skinheads in Frankfurt/Oder and especially on the opening of the new synagogue in down town Munich, things here in Tübingen were focused on local history.
The Tübingen Geschichtswerkstatt ("History Workshop") gave the same historical walk I reported on last year. (You can take a virtual tour of many of the sites at the webpage of the soon-to-be-defunct Fördervereins zur Erforschung der Heimatgeschichte des Nationalsozialismus im Landkreis Tübingen e.V..)This year, the ceremony at the Gartenstrasse memorial was different, however. It was a fortaste of an exhibition opened later that evening at the Kulturhalle. While over 100 people gathered at the memorial, a computer-generated animated image of the former synagogue was projected onto the wall of the neighboring house - the house which now stands on the location of the former synagogue.
Later, at the opening of the exhibition, several hundred people, including the new mayor Boris Palmer, Michael Lucke and other local church and city dignitaries, were on hand to see two more computer simulation projects showing what the synagogue, which was destroyed on November 9-10, 1938, looked like both on the interior and in the context of the neighboring houses. The simulations were created by three independently-working teams in the club "Courage," a youth group dedicated to the memory of Lilli Zapf, a local historian who spent her life writing about the Tübingen Jews. The teams were coached by Carsten Kaut.
The Kulturhalle exhibition - titled "Stone-Light-Word-Image" - is the provisional, temporary result of long deliberations within the Tübingen city council and local groups about what to do with the few remaining stones from the foundation of the former Gartenstrasse synagogue. In 2004 someone asked what had become of the stones and, as Herr Wilfried Setzler, head of the local culture office, explained, a discussion began about what to do with the stones. Various ideas were discussed and rejected for various reasons including turning the stones over to the local Dietrich-Bonhoffer congregation, putting them in a museum, or putting them in Gräberfeld X.
The various components of the exhibition make for an impressive, elegantly simple combination in keeping with the title. The hall has the stones distributed in artfully random fashion around the room ("stone"). They suggest the scattered, ruined remnants of Jewish life in Tübingen (while posing a danger to visitors who try to walk while looking at the walls or anywhere but down!). On one wall, the computer simulation of the synagogues is shown ("light"). Pre-1938 and post-war photographs of local Jews hang on the other walls ("image").
The "Word" part of the title was provided at the opening by Karl Menrad from the local theater. He read exerpts from the 1882 dedication speech for the opening of the original synagogue by the Rabbi Dr. Silberstein. On the one hand, the rabbi's words reflected the nationalistic mood of the period in which they were written. On the other, some of the passages seemed like eary warnings of the future, such as his admonition against anyone entering the synagogue with hateful intent or feeling and his request that God protect the synagogue from fire and flood.
Mayor Olaf Palmer also spoke briefly at the opening of the exhibition. He recalled his own partially-Jewish heritage and a recent visit to the town where his Jewish anscestors came from. In that town, Königsbach-Stein, the location of the former synagogue, which had aslo been destroyed by the Nazis, had not been marked at all, but had had a garage built over it. Palmer recounted the story of a man who returned to the location after decades in America and, upon seeing the garage, remarked that he wanted to have nothing to do with a country that showed such disrespect. Later, a memorial replaced the garage. Palmer spoke with confidence that Tübingen would continue to demonstrate a responsible approach to its own history under his leadership.
The exhibition is at the Kulturhalle near the Nonnenhaus in down town Tübingen until the 18th of November.
At the synagogue ceremony, at the opening of the exhibition, and in the memorial church service in the Stiftskirche, the founding of a new organization was announced: "Bustan Shalom" is the first officially recognized Jewish organization in Tübingen since the Nazi period. They have been meeting in the rooms of the Dietrich Bonhoffer congregation on the Sabbath and on Jewish holidays. At the church memorial service, a collection was taken up for the group to buy ceremonial items for their services. The speaker who asked for donations at the ceremony emphasized the symbolic importance of having Christians fund the procurement of Jewish religious items.
The church service has been taking place on 9 November every year since in Tübingen since 1992, the year of "Rostock and Hoyerswerda" as visitors were reminded (the year of racist attacks on foreigners in those German cities). It is organized by an interdenominational Christian coalition, with one congregation running the specifics each year in rotation. This year was the 100th birthday of Nazi resister and Tübingen theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer, so the congregation named after him was in charge. Bonhoffer turned against the Nazis specifically because of their oppression of the Jews and was later executed along with the other plotters of July, 1944. The central element of the ceremony was a presentation by confirmation students from the congregation who reported their impressions from having visited the synagogue memorial and studied the life of Dietrich Bonhöffer. Their words were predictably about being enraged, mystified, afraid of what one might have done if alive back then, and hate for the Nazis. An interesting element to some of their comments, however, and a theme throughout the ceremony, was that of reconciliation and cooperation with, and respect for Judaism. That congregation is the only one in Baden-Württemberg with a Jewish partner congregation (in Petrozavodsk, Russia, a partner city of Tübingen).
The Tübingen Geschichtswerkstatt ("History Workshop") gave the same historical walk I reported on last year. (You can take a virtual tour of many of the sites at the webpage of the soon-to-be-defunct Fördervereins zur Erforschung der Heimatgeschichte des Nationalsozialismus im Landkreis Tübingen e.V..)This year, the ceremony at the Gartenstrasse memorial was different, however. It was a fortaste of an exhibition opened later that evening at the Kulturhalle. While over 100 people gathered at the memorial, a computer-generated animated image of the former synagogue was projected onto the wall of the neighboring house - the house which now stands on the location of the former synagogue.
Later, at the opening of the exhibition, several hundred people, including the new mayor Boris Palmer, Michael Lucke and other local church and city dignitaries, were on hand to see two more computer simulation projects showing what the synagogue, which was destroyed on November 9-10, 1938, looked like both on the interior and in the context of the neighboring houses. The simulations were created by three independently-working teams in the club "Courage," a youth group dedicated to the memory of Lilli Zapf, a local historian who spent her life writing about the Tübingen Jews. The teams were coached by Carsten Kaut.
The Kulturhalle exhibition - titled "Stone-Light-Word-Image" - is the provisional, temporary result of long deliberations within the Tübingen city council and local groups about what to do with the few remaining stones from the foundation of the former Gartenstrasse synagogue. In 2004 someone asked what had become of the stones and, as Herr Wilfried Setzler, head of the local culture office, explained, a discussion began about what to do with the stones. Various ideas were discussed and rejected for various reasons including turning the stones over to the local Dietrich-Bonhoffer congregation, putting them in a museum, or putting them in Gräberfeld X.
The various components of the exhibition make for an impressive, elegantly simple combination in keeping with the title. The hall has the stones distributed in artfully random fashion around the room ("stone"). They suggest the scattered, ruined remnants of Jewish life in Tübingen (while posing a danger to visitors who try to walk while looking at the walls or anywhere but down!). On one wall, the computer simulation of the synagogues is shown ("light"). Pre-1938 and post-war photographs of local Jews hang on the other walls ("image").
The "Word" part of the title was provided at the opening by Karl Menrad from the local theater. He read exerpts from the 1882 dedication speech for the opening of the original synagogue by the Rabbi Dr. Silberstein. On the one hand, the rabbi's words reflected the nationalistic mood of the period in which they were written. On the other, some of the passages seemed like eary warnings of the future, such as his admonition against anyone entering the synagogue with hateful intent or feeling and his request that God protect the synagogue from fire and flood.
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This picture shows the main exhibition hall before the huge crowd of visitors blocked all view of the synagogue stones. |
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Visitors view the pictures of Jewish life in Tübingen in the 1930s. On the right is Martin Ulmer from the Tübingen Geschichtswerkstatt, who is very knowledgeable about Holocaust history in Baden-Württemberg. |
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Carsten Kaut (left) introduces the 14-19-year-old youths who designed the computer animations of the synagogue. |
Mayor Olaf Palmer also spoke briefly at the opening of the exhibition. He recalled his own partially-Jewish heritage and a recent visit to the town where his Jewish anscestors came from. In that town, Königsbach-Stein, the location of the former synagogue, which had aslo been destroyed by the Nazis, had not been marked at all, but had had a garage built over it. Palmer recounted the story of a man who returned to the location after decades in America and, upon seeing the garage, remarked that he wanted to have nothing to do with a country that showed such disrespect. Later, a memorial replaced the garage. Palmer spoke with confidence that Tübingen would continue to demonstrate a responsible approach to its own history under his leadership.
The exhibition is at the Kulturhalle near the Nonnenhaus in down town Tübingen until the 18th of November.
At the synagogue ceremony, at the opening of the exhibition, and in the memorial church service in the Stiftskirche, the founding of a new organization was announced: "Bustan Shalom" is the first officially recognized Jewish organization in Tübingen since the Nazi period. They have been meeting in the rooms of the Dietrich Bonhoffer congregation on the Sabbath and on Jewish holidays. At the church memorial service, a collection was taken up for the group to buy ceremonial items for their services. The speaker who asked for donations at the ceremony emphasized the symbolic importance of having Christians fund the procurement of Jewish religious items.
The church service has been taking place on 9 November every year since in Tübingen since 1992, the year of "Rostock and Hoyerswerda" as visitors were reminded (the year of racist attacks on foreigners in those German cities). It is organized by an interdenominational Christian coalition, with one congregation running the specifics each year in rotation. This year was the 100th birthday of Nazi resister and Tübingen theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer, so the congregation named after him was in charge. Bonhoffer turned against the Nazis specifically because of their oppression of the Jews and was later executed along with the other plotters of July, 1944. The central element of the ceremony was a presentation by confirmation students from the congregation who reported their impressions from having visited the synagogue memorial and studied the life of Dietrich Bonhöffer. Their words were predictably about being enraged, mystified, afraid of what one might have done if alive back then, and hate for the Nazis. An interesting element to some of their comments, however, and a theme throughout the ceremony, was that of reconciliation and cooperation with, and respect for Judaism. That congregation is the only one in Baden-Württemberg with a Jewish partner congregation (in Petrozavodsk, Russia, a partner city of Tübingen).
mhatlie - Mon Nov 13, 10:56 Topic: Tübingen events
