Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany
Book Launch
On Thursday, November 20, 2025, the Leiden Jewish Studies Network celebrated the launch of the book Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025) co-authored by Ofer Ashkenazi (Jerusalem), Sarah Wobick-Segev (Hamburg), Shira Miron (Basel) and Rebekka Grossmann (Leiden).
Together with moderators Laura Almagor (Utrecht) and Natalie Scholz (Amsterdam), Rebekka Grossmann and Sarah Wobick-Segev discussed the ways photographs can teach us new ways of how to understand Jewish life under Nazi persecution. Evaluating and analysing a database of thousands of images which they collected in archives and museums around the world, the authors showed that photography can serve as a window into a world under suppression which enabled the carriers of cameras to document their lives, create memories and express feelings of both community and exclusion.
A particularly interesting observation was the extensive use of photography by teenagers whose experiences and memories are more difficult to come by via other kinds of sources. Grossmann and Wobick-Segev showed that teenagers carrying cameras developed their own approaches to tell their stories of life under Nazism, including on trips they took across the country in times of uncertainty.
The event was attended by around 40 guests including students of the Leiden Hoger Onderwijs voor Ouderen (HOVO) programme who attended the event as part of the course “Jewish Life: Visualizing the Jewish Experience”.
At the end of the event we celebrated Lotte-Sophie Groenendijk for winning the Best Thesis in Jewish Studies Prize and Nasreen Javanjoo for honourable mention.
