Overview

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.

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9781512826357

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Reviews

"""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."" * Leora Auslander, University of Chicago * ""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."" * Atina Grossmann, Cooper Union *"

Author Information

Ofer Ashkenazi is Professor of History and Director of the Koebner-Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Rebekka Grossmann is a an Assistant Professor of Migration History at Leiden University. Shira Miron is a PhD candidate studying German Literature at Yale University. Sarah Wobick-Segev is a research associate at the Universität Hamburg.

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