Contradictory Conditions: Jewish Life in East Germany, Past and Present

It’s a decidedly blustery day on Karl Marx Street in Eisenach, in the eastern German state of Thuringia. Gold and rust-tinted leaves scatter the ground of a small park marking the site of the town’s former synagogue—burned down by a Nazi mob on Kristallnacht, the nationwide pogroms on November 9, 1938.

Tucked away in a quiet corner not far from Eisenach’s theater, the memorial is one of 32 sites across Thuringia—spots where synagogues were desecrated or destroyed that night in 1938. Of the many previously active synagogues, only a few remain today. Only one has been rebuilt for weekly services. The others are marked by memorial stones and stairways leading to nowhere—including empty lots or garden plots, apartment buildings, and even a grocery store. Where the small town of Vacha’s synagogue once stood, there is now a hobby shop.

These places dot the east German landscape, from Potsdam to Zwickau, Dresden to Magdeburg. Along with other memorials like Stolpersteine—stones with brass plates bearing the names of Holocaust (Shoah) victims, laid in the pavement in front of their former homes and businesses—they stand as stark reminders of the absent presence of the region’s once thriving Jewish population. They are places where the palpable influence of eastern Germany’s Jews remains potent, even where they are no longer present.

They also signal the Jewish community’s present absence. Since the Shoah, under sometimes radically conflicting conditions, a range of diverse Jews have returned, resettled, and restored a sense of Jewish life across the former East German Republic (GDR). But the community is less-than-half what it was in pre-war Germany.

In places like Berlin, Leipzig, and Erfurt, Jews’ stories over the last century speak to lives lived between far-right politics and those of the far-left, communism and capitalism, growth and decline, remembrance culture (Erinnerungskultur) and an ominously encroaching antisemitism. Looking at East Germany–past and present–through Jewish eyes reveals today’s controversies are nothing new.

The challenges Jews in Germany faced following the Holocaust, including perils to their very existence, have shaped Jewish lives in the east for decades. The story of how under such conditions they still preserved their heritage is decades long. Now, facing declining demographics, a resurgent antisemitism, and fearing a far-right political turn, eastern Germany’s Jewish communities are once again under threat. And, once more, they are not only preserving their heritage, but claiming their place in German society.

The Little-Known Jewish History in the Heart of Germany

Berkach lies in the bucolic borderlands between the German states of Bavaria and Thuringia. Formerly divided by the hard boundary between former East (GDR) and West Germany, the one-time international frontier is now marked by an old watch tower, about a half mile outside the village.

But I’m not in Berkach today to chronicle its accounts of living on the fringes of the former GDR. Instead, I’m here to discover another significant aspect of the hamlet’s history, its once robust and significant Jewish life. 

As Germany looks back on 1,700 years of Jewish life in the country, dating back to a decree in Cologne in 321 they are recalling Judaism’s long, if complicated, history in central Europe. 

Visiting sites like Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin or renowned Jewish museums in Frankfurt, Berlin, or Munich, one gets a sense of the enormity of what was lost in the Holocaust — in human lives, in culture, in knowledge, in history and heart. 

Yet, despite the ways each institution seeks to personalize the ambivalence of German Jewish life over the years, there is an intimacy and immediacy that is missed if those are the only places one goes. 

To get a sense of the absent presence that Germany continues to wrestle with, one must also explore smaller, provincial places like Berkach. 

Weimar: The Capital of Contemporary Yiddishland?

In a clear homage to the Beatles’ 1967 “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album cover and its wonderful whirl of colorful visuals, the poster for this year’s Yiddish Summer Weimar (YSW) festival features a menagerie of cut-out visages: from Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to wandering cattle and a bedecked bass drum reading, “Makonovetsky’s Wandering Stars Club Band.”

Together, the collage symbolizes the transcultural and time-spanning story of Yiddish culture and music — its progenitors and critics, its historical influences and contemporary performative interpreters.

At the center of it all stands Alan Bern.  

Bern playing the accordion. PHOTO: Yulia Kabakova, courtesy of Alan Bern

The Bloomington, Indiana-born composer, musician, educator and cultural activist made his way to Berlin, Germany in 1987. There, he helped found Brave Old World, a band described by The Washington Post as the first “supergroup” of klezmer music’s contemporary revival movement.

Klezmer music is an instrumental tradition of Ashkenazi Jews of Europe. Simply meaning “musician,” the word “klezmer” reflects, and conveys, its broader Yiddish roots.

A spoken language of a considerable portion of Ashkenazi Jews for centuries, Yiddish emerged in 9th-century Europe as a mix of German vernacular, written Hebrew, and Aramaic, Slavic, and Romantic linguistic influences and vocabulary. Meaning “Jewish” in the language itself, Yiddish is also the vehicle for a rich culture heritage of everyday Jewish life and celebration: proverbs, humor, idioms and music.

Over the last 30-odd years, klezmer – and Yiddish language and culture in general – has been enjoying quite the comeback.

Knoblauch Klezmer Band · Moustache

In the midst of this rejuvenation, Bern and Brave Old World were invited to conduct a workshop on Yiddish music in the central German city of Weimar as part of the European Summer Academy in 1999. The workshop was a wild success and Bern became the founding artistic director of what is now known as YSW — a five-week summer institute and festival for the study, creation and performance of Yiddish culture and music in the heart of Germany.

Today, it is one of the most widely recognized programs for the renewal of Yiddish culture in the world, receiving awards from the European Union and the German Music Council, among others. In 2016 Bern was awarded the Weimar Prize in recognition of his significant cultural contributions to the city.

For Bern, YSW is about more than showcasing Yiddish music; it’s about exploring Yiddish culture as a complex, and continually evolving, convergence of European and non-European customs. It’s also about empowering people for creativity and connection on a continent evermore marked by diversity and difference.

After 1,700 years of complicated history, Germany's Jews look to the future

Just a few steps down from Erfurt’s famous Krämerbrücke and its boutique shops, bespoke ice cream, and local charm, you’ll a mikveh (bath used for ritual purification) that dates back to the 13th-century. It’s a testament to the rich, and long, history of Jews and Jewish life in the central German city.

As I was standing in Erfurt’s mikveh a few weeks ago, I took a silent moment to reflect on the immensity of 900 years of Jewish history in the city.

Staring at the steps, I imagined the women who would descend them to bathe in the Gera river’s waters and wondered what their lives were like, what stories they could tell, what histories were embedded in the dusty sandstone and murky water of the memorial right in the midst of Erfurt’s old town.

I was humbled by the immensity of that history, the honor of standing in such a space and being given the opportunity to share such stories.

Mühlhausen citizens Nancy Krug, Pastor Teja Begrich, and Dr. Antje Schloms, pictured here in the town’s 19th-century synagogue, are part of honoring the history of Jewish life in the city. PHOTO: Ken Chitwood.

Thankfully, there are plenty of opportunities to learn about Jewish history in Germany — from well-known museums and monuments in Frankfurt and Berlin to lesser-known, but equally valuable, synagogues in places like Mühlhausen and Berkach.

But for this piece, I wanted to learn about more than history. And so, I spoke to Jewish leaders, researchers, historians, and other experts to learn what their history can tell us today and what Jewish life looks like in Germany now and in the near future.

The result is my latest piece with Religion News Service: “Germany celebrates a historic milestone of Jewish culture — while looking forward.” 

*Many thanks go to the various people I spoke to for this piece. I am working on a couple of other articles related to this research, but for now I wanted to mention all the people who contributed background, provided coordination, or otherwise assisted with this piece: Kristin Luther with the city of Erfurt; Dr. Maria Stürzebecher, also with the city of Erfurt; Carolina von Stojentin with Thüringer Tourismus; Gundela Bach in the village of Berkach; Nancy Krug of the city of Mühlhausen; Pastor Teja Begrich of Mühlhausen; Dr. Antje Schloms of the Mühlhausen city archives, Prof. Dr. Annegret Schüle of Erinnerungsort Topf & Söhne; Prof. Dr. Carsten Schapkow of the University of Oklahoma; Alan Bern with Yiddish Summer Weimar; Helene Shani Braun in Berlin; Rabbi Alexander Nachama of the  Jüdische Landesgemeinde Thüringen; Manfred Levy, education director at Jüdischen Museum Frankfurt; Alexandra Husemeyer of the Tora ist Leben project; and Martin Kranz of the Achava Festspiele Thüringen.