Book Launch
Book Launch: Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany
- Date
- Thursday 20 November 2025
- Time
- Explanation
- The event will be followed by a reception and the presentation of the award for the "Best Thesis in Jewish Studies" produced at Leiden University between Nov. 1, 2023 and Nov. 1, 2025.
- Location
- Faculty Club
Rapenburg 73
2311 GJ Leiden
Natalie Scholz (University of Amsterdam), Laura Almagor (Utrecht Universiy), Sarah Wobick-Segev (University of Hamburg) and Rebekka Grossmann (Leiden University)
in conversation about
Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
Co-authored by Ofer Ashkenazi, Rebekka Grossmann, Shira Miron, Sarah Wobick-Segev.
About the book
In a time of intensifying anti-Jewish rhetoric and policies, German Jews documented their lives and their environment with their cameras. Still Lives 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. The authors claim that these reactions complement, complicate, and, sometimes, undermine the contents of contemporaneous written sources.
Organization
This event is sponsored by the Leiden Jewish Studies Network.