Stories from the GDR – Biographical Interviews with Jews from 1980 to Today

Miriam Rürup, Director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies in Potsdam, moderates a panel discussion featuring sociologist Robin Ostow, cultural historian Jeffrey Peck, author Lara Dämmig and filmmaker Yael Reuveny as they talk about and reflect on their different interview projects.

Canadian sociologist Robin Ostow interviewed East German Jews in the 1980s and 1990s, which resulted in the publication of two books. Around the same time, the American cultural historian Jeffrey Peck conducted interviews for his documentary film Chronik einer Rückkehr: Lebenswege deutscher Juden in der DDR (Chronicles of Return: Life Histories of Jews in the GDR, 1993). More recently, Lara Dämmig and Sandra Anusiewicz-Baer collected interviews for their book Jung und Jüdisch in der DDR (Young and Jewish in the GDR), published in 2021. Filmmaker Yael Reuveny created the audio and video installation Neuland (New Land), which can currently be seen in the exhibition Another Country. Jewish in the GDR. The project was part of the Jewish Museum Berlin’s W. Michael Blumenthal Fellowship 2022/23.

Organized by the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies in Potsdam and the Jewish Museum Berlin, the event is part of the conference “...And Facing the Future? – On Jewish History and Stories in the GDR.”

The conference is sponsored by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation and will take place as part of the accompanying program for the exhibition Another Country. Jewish in the GDR. The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Foundation of the German Federal States.