I got an email last week from a researcher working for the Fritz Bauer Institut in Frankfurt. She is looking for photos of pre-Shoah Jewish life in the area. This is the email I got:
**** Search for private photos from Hesse *****
( the areas around Frankfurt,Darmstadt, Wiesbaden,
Kassel, Fulda, Marburg, Hanau, Giessen, etc.)
This is to announce the development of a new photo web site:
BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST – PHOTOS OF JEWISH EVERYDAY LIFE IN HESSEN
We are appealing for help with our search from private sources for copies of pre WW II photos originating from the Hessian territories (today the State of Hessen).
Please have a new look at your family heirlooms and share your photo treasures with us. All details can be handled according to the wishes of the owner or provider.
Advice for the technical procedures will be given. And please pass this request on to other persons with family ties to Hesse.
Old photos for young Germans
German school books often use (negative) stereotypes of Jews in history to explain victimization over the centuries.
And Holocaust teaching mostly speaks about abstract victims of
persecution or simply of numbers.
To overcome these shortcomings in education, and to allow for empathy and a more personal understanding, teachers and students should be supplied with a different sources as well.
As a contemporary approach, on-line tools are to be developed, a new photo database will be created which will provide images of real people. They will be seen as individuals, with faces and their names, in family settings or small groups, and in their home towns and villages.
Once, before the Nazi period, there was a thriving Jewish population in Hesse. How did Jews live here in over 300 small and medium size villages, towns and cities? This will be shown with photos of individuals, families, and activities in their communal environment.
Pictures of everyday life, religious events, festivities, of business and sports and other forms of public life will be presented. Visual
impressions will be amended by textual descriptions and comments.
This will contribute to a more accurate image of the diversity and also the normality of Jewish existence in the decades before 1933. But the years after the Nazis took over will also be documented. Thus the beginning of the Nazi persecution and its effects on Jewish life can be estimated more accurately. Photos of the emigration and escape are welcome as well.
For technical quality it would be good to have the photos in 300 dpi or 600 dpi (original size) uncompressed.
If your photos are already scanned in a lower dpi version you can send them and I will find out if that also would be okay for the project. That always depends on the original photos.
For each photo I would like to have some short information, if possible of course
- who is on the photo , year of birth, place of birth if possible
- if it is a group only the main figures
- where was it taken? Which city or village
- was it taken in the house of the family, or in barn or (if possible)
- when taken – around what year??
- occasion of taken the photo
- occupation of the person like cattle trader or so
- later emigrated from Nazi-Germany to which country
- later perished in the Holocaust
If your photos are already scanned in a lower dpi version you can send them and I will find out if that also would be okay for the project. That always depends on the original photos.
This is a project of the *** Fritz Bauer Institute *** Education
Department
www.fritz-bauer-institut.de
The Institute is a Research And Documentation Center For The History And The Impact Of The Holocaust, Education Department, in Frankfurt/Germany
www.fritz-bauer-institut.de/english.htm
For further information please contact Monica Kingreen:
M.Kingreen@fritz-bauer-institut.de or Kingreen@gmx.net
phone +49 (0) 69-798 322 31 fax +49 (0) 69–798 322 41
With three digital cameras in our household, the hard disk on our home computer is rapidly running out of space.
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