When the German Rabbi Leo Beck was freed from the theresionstad concentration camp on 8 May 1945, the day the war ended, it no longer believed in future for Jewish people in Germany.
Who wanted to live in the country that planned to drive away the German Jew and killed millions of people? “The era of Jews in Germany,” said at that time Bake said, “is for ONCO and everyone.”
This assessment was shared by most people at that time.
But what will be the German Jewish culture for centuries? Who will remember the music of Mendelsohan Bartholdi and Arnold Seanberg, Joseph Roth, Franz Kafka, Alfred Winn or otherwise Laskar-Elector’s literature?
Even during the years of oppression, preserving the German-Jewish cultural heritage was part of resistance, called Dornavinovisi, a historian of Austria, Israeli.
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“Recalling what resistance against forgetting, against Erezure,” he told the DW to attempt to destroy the Jewish culture during the 12 -year Nazi rule.
Showing what the Nazis destroyed
In 1955, ten years after the end of World War II ended, a group of German-speaking Jews, including philosopher Hannah Arndt and historian Gorshom Scolm, established the Leo Beck Institute (LBI), “to show what the Nazis had destroyed,” Mondavich-Maximilians University explained the Professor, Mickel Brener of Judicial History and Culture.
The institute “cultural achievements, but will celebrate the daily life of the German Jews,” Brener said, who has been the chairman of the 2013 institutions.
Historian said that LBI was named after Rabbi Leo Bake, which was “the great religious and spiritual shiny light of the liberal German Jew”. Bake became the first president, but died in 1956, a year after the installation of the institute.
The New York, London and Jerusalem were the highest importing destinations for Jewish migrants after the War, and these LBI had three places.
Research Institute promotes German Jewish Heritage
The special that LBI had made from the beginning came from Jewish refugees or their descendants: books, letters, photos, and therefore art work.
Today, LBI is the most imported research institute for the heritage of the German Jew. Most of the LBI collection have digitized bees and made it accessible online, including more than 3.5 million pages using service with scholars and descendants of Jews survived globally.
Hence the annual year is published, programs are held, and young people are supported in science. LBI produced the four-volume standard function, “German-Jewish History in the modern era”. Currently, the history of the German-Jewish migrant is going on.
Some people may be surprised to know that LBI has been present for so long, but Few would have expected a branch to open in Berlin.
As contemporary witnesses are witnesses and descendants with their origin, LBI is trying to survive with new projects in the German-Jewish cultural heritage.
The thesis consisted of the podcast “exile” recited by German actress Iris Berben, based on a letter, diary and interview from the LBI collection.
For the purpose of a young audience, podcast tells stories of people whose life has been shaped by Havs with exile, flight or harassment.
LBI is threatened if an attack on academic life
While the famous Research Institute is celebrating its 70th birthday in 2025, it should not obscure the fact that it is a member, typical, in the US, feel that their educational work is in danger.
“The situation in the USA has not been made easier than the attacks on academic life,” said Michael Branner of Government policies to cut funding in universities.
Historians and author Dorn Rabinovisi, therefore see another threat from the global rise of right -wing parties. The assessment of Leo Bake in 1945 that the Jewish life in Germany ended. But what will bring the next few years?
A “resurrection Jewish survival” is possible only in an open society in which antismitism is combined, warning Rabinovisi. And it is not possible to comb anti-semititis with right-wing extremists.
In Germany, Leo wants to be celebrated with a ceremony under the protection of the 70th anniversary federal President Frank-Walter Steinmier of the Beck Institute. The event will be the speaker LBI, Michael Braner and the president of Austrian historian and writer Dorn Rabinovsi.
This article was edited by Sarah Hukal.
