Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany

Ofer Ashkenazi; Sarah Wobick-Segev; Rebekka Grossmann; Shira Miron

Book

Still Lives

Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany

Ofer Ashkenazi , Sarah Wobick-Segev , Rebekka Grossmann and Shira Miron

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2025

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About this book

How German Jews used photographs to document their experiences in the face of National Socialism

Still Lives is a systematic study of the ways Jews used photographs to document their experiences in the face of National Socialism. In a time of intensifying anti-Jewish rhetoric and policies, German Jews documented their lives and their environment in tens of thousands of photographs. German Jews of considerably diverse backgrounds took and preserved these photographs: professional and amateurs, of different ages, gender, and classes. The book argues that their previously overlooked photographs convey otherwise unuttered views, emotions, and self-perceptions. Based on a database of more than fifteen thousand relevant images, it analyzes photographs within the historical contexts of their production, preservation, and intended viewing, and explores a plethora of Jews’ reactions to the changing landscapes of post-1933 Germany. Here, the authors claim that these reactions complement, complicate, and, sometimes, undermine the contents of contemporaneous written sources.

Still Lives develops a new methodology for historians to use while reading and analyzing photographs, and shows how one can highlight an image’s role in a narrative that comments on, and assigns meaning to, the reality it documents. In times of radical uncertainty, numerous German Jews used photography to communicate their intricate, confused, and conflicting expectations, fears, and beliefs. Through careful analysis of these photographs, this book lays the foundations for a new history of the German-Jewish experience during the National Socialist years.

Author / Editor information

Contributor: Rebekka Grossmann Rebekka Grossmann is Assistant Professor of Migration History at Leiden University. She is co-editor of Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (University of Pennsylvania Press 2025).

Reviews

"Elegantly and seamlessly co-written by four experts in both visual analysis and social history, Still Lives offers a new and powerful lens with which to understand the increasingly fraught everyday life of Jewish Germans in Nazi Germany." --- "Grounded in an extraordinary photographic archive, brilliantly analyzed by a scholarly dream team, Still Lives is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how Jews lived under Nazism." --- "Still Lives ably shows that the spaces of Jewish life captured by pocket-sized cameras convey vital narratives of life before a seismic rupture."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction. Jewish Photography in an Age of Extreme Uncertainty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	1
PART I. PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE GERMAN-JEWISH EXPERIENCE
Chapter 1. Documenting, Exhibiting, and Contemplating Jewishness: A Brief History of German-Jewish Photography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	27
Chapter 2. Reading Photographs of Jews in Nazi Germany: Functions, Compositions, Meanings Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	48
PART II. THE PHOTOGRAPHIC ENCODING OF GERMAN-JEWISH LIVES
Chapter 3. A Site of Comfort and Defiance: Photographs of the Jewish Home in Nazi Germany Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	75
Chapter 4. Estranged Homeland: Exploring the Newly Nazified Landscapes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	101
Chapter 5. Probing the Binaries of the German-Jewish Experience: The Photographed “Jewish Spaces” of the Third Reich Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	139
PART III. INCONCLUSIVE STORIES: JEWS’ VISUAL NARRATIVES IN THE FACE OF NAZISM
Chapter 6. With a Wink and a Nod: Arthur Freund’s Family Album as a Site of Memory and Its Deconstruction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	175
Chapter 7. The Elusive Storyteller: The Two Narrators of Marianne Holländer’s Schooldays Album Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	195
Chapter 8. Abstractions as Pathos: Narrating Martha Maas’s (Fantasy of) Success in Nazi Berlin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	211
Chapter 9. Montage Storytelling: Ambivalent Reflections on Jewishness and Emigration Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	230
Chapter 10. Departure, Finitude, and (Post-)Memories: Last Photos from Germany Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	248
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	267
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	311
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	339
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	353

Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

January 2, 2025

eBook ISBN:

9781512826364

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

https://doi.org/10.9783/9781512826364

eBook ISBN: 9781512826364

Keywords for this book

Jewish life in Nazi Germany; National Socialism; everyday life under Nazi occupation; Jewish photography; German-Jewish history; Holocaust victims and survivors; Jewish family photo album; Photographs of Jewish homes; Jewish spaces of the third reich; Twentieth century photography history; How to interpret Jewish photographs; 1930s; using photography to express emotion

Still Lives

Overview

About this book

Author / Editor information

Reviews

Topics

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