Persecuted women
"Persecuted - displaced - forgotten women"
Development of a traveling exhibition "Persecuted - displaced - forgotten women"

Planned duration: 01.07.2018 to 30.06.2020

80 years ago, in November 1938, synagogues and other Jewish institutions were burning. Previously, there had been a boycott of Jewish businesses, medical practices and law firms since April 1933. In May 1933, as part of the campaign "Against the undeutschen spirit" book burnings with their climax on May 10, in which the entire literature that did not fit into the worldview of the Nazis, should be burned.
For years there have been candles on stumbling blocks and in front of former synagogues, conversations of contemporary witnesses and speeches calling for remembrance. This is now routine on days such as the 9th of November, the anniversary of the Pogrom Night, or on the 27th of January, the International Remembrance Day for the Victims of National Socialism.
This ritualized culture of commemoration has reached its limits and must be replaced by an active engagement with the history of National Socialism and the Holocaust in Germany - precisely because, for example, AfD politicians are currently calling for an end to Nazism. It is particularly alarming that, according to a Körber Foundation survey published in September 2017, only 59 percent of students aged 14 and over knew that Auschwitz was a concentration and extermination camp.
For some years now, the specific local history has also been more closely examined and included in the commemoration: for example, all the names of the locally murdered, deported, displaced and injured Jewish persons are read out and survivors or eyewitnesses tell their personal story.
A group of people has so far come in the workup too short - the women. They were Jews, anti-fascists or came from "hostile foreign countries" - and they have written books or created works of art. Because these women and their works seemed dangerous to Nazi leaders, many of them were ostracized and obstructed by professional prohibitions in their work. Finally, her books from the libraries, bookstores and antique shops were seized and publicly burned on May 10, 1933. Likewise, their works have been removed from galleries and art collections to erase their names from people's memories. They were persecuted, driven into exile and sometimes even killed ... Only since 1967 did Germany finally begin to remember its persecuted, expelled and murdered authors and artists.

This nationwide first touring traveling exhibition is designed to wrest as many women as possible from oblivion: with young people we go in search of traces in archives, museums and memorials. In thematic tours (workshops in Berlin and Weimar), workshops, lectures and media work, the young people explore the Nazi era and, in particular, the lives and fates of women affected, while at the same time exploring the mechanisms of exclusion, fascism and persecution. The acquired knowledge and knowledge will enable them to actively engage in education, tolerance, democracy, freedom, equality and exclusion, anti-Semitism, discrimination in any form and inhumanity. It will be natural for them to respect and accept different cultural, sexual and religious identities. By communicating knowledge, facilitating participation, acquiring and strengthening competencies, and by providing recognition, we encourage young people to actively shape democracy in the future by strengthening their commitment to civic engagement.
In Berlin we can experience history in the footsteps of, for example, Else Lasker-Schüler or Mascha Kaléko. In Weimar we learn about Bauhaus women, such as Lucia Moholy-Nagy, Friedl Dicker, Otti Berger, Grete Stern or Marguerite Friedländer. We explore the fate of women writers such as Milena Jesenska, Maria Leitner, Lili Green, Gertrud Kolmar, Elise Richter, Rose Foreigners, Selma Meerbaum or Hedwig Dohm.

Results:
After 12 months, a first radio program about the work on the project will be designed and a flyer with the intermediate results, a Power Point presentation and a catalog "V³ women" will be developed. These materials can be used in class in the future.
Following the completion of the second year of the project, the traveling exhibition will be presented at a prominent location in Halle on municipal Equal Opportunity Officers, the Land Central for Civic Education, the State Women Council Saxony-Anhalt eV (LFR) and other multipliers in cities, schools, universities and other suitable locations in Saxony-Anhalt - but also nationwide - shown. The coordination of the rental will be done by Dornrosa eV Halle.

Contact:
Project Manager: Elke Prinz
Phone: 0345/2024331
E-Mail: prinz-elke-frauenzentrum@web.de

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