In the by now thirteenth edition of MEDAON Fabian Schwanzar awaits you with an article on the Old Synagogue in Essen as one of the earliest attempts at local remembrance of the time of National Socialism in the Federal Republic of Germany and on the conflicts and discussions on content and form of the urban memorial site in its transition in the past decades.
Almost seventy years after end of World War II the history of National Socialism still begs questions. The involvement of police in the crimes of National Socialist Germany, especially against civilians in Eastern Europe, has moved into the consciousness of the public in the last years. However, intensive investigation into the roles of different police units in the mass murders is still pending. The research by Klaus Dönecke and Hermann Spix reveals a telling insight into their research project on the reserve police battalion 67 of Essen.
Uta Larkey, on the other hand, deals with the trend of multilingualism in newer Israeli film. She examines this in the function as a stylistic and dramaturgic device, especially under the aspect of migration into Israel and the question of the capability of the Israeli society to integrate national and ethnic minorities.
In an extensive article, Lars Fischer offers insight into the life of Gertrud Mayer-Jaspers, wife of Karl Jaspers and sister of the historian and Engels-biographer Gustav Mayer. Animated by research in the estate of Mayer-Jaspers, Fischer discovered three till date unpublished poems by the poet Margarete Susmann, which we are here for the first time presenting to the interested reader.
In the category “Sources”, we recommend the source critical examination of the unsolved number of victims of the children’s transport Dn/b Bialystok to Auschwitz by Joachim Albrechts.
In the series Jüdische Künstlerinnen wieder entdeckt you can in this issue look forward to the short biography of Valeska Gert, dancer, cabaret artist and actor, by Elke Kotowski. Other miscellaneous contributions include Tomke Hinrichs on the rescue of writer Karl Joseph Wolfkehl’s library by Salman Schocken, Ulrich Fritz on the development of publicly owned memorial sites and cemeteries in Bavaria, Franz Hammer on Jewish forced laborers in Leipzig and Tanja Kinzel on photo documents as a source in online-archives.
In the category “Education” Nathanja Hüttenmeister examines the recommendation of the Old Israelite Cemetery in Leipzig as a place of extracurricular education and Robert Maier deals with an online education concept on the history of Jewish and German minorities in the Soviet Union offered to adolescents and pedagogues, which was conceived and created by HATiKVA e.V.
As usual you will find a number of current scholarly publications reviewed.
This issue would also have not been achieved without the help of Irina Suttner and the reviewers. Cathleen Bürgelt, Nicola Watson, Phillip Roth and Marcus Schaub as well as Gunther Gebhard and Steffen Schröter of text plus form took care of corrections – the editors express their sincere gratitude!
We wish you insightful and entertaining reading.
Finally, we want to call attention to the Fritz-Meyer-Preis, which was awarded by HATiKVA e.V. and the MEDAON editors in 2012 for the first time and which honors outstanding achievements of younger scholars every two years. Proposals for the award can be made until 31. December 2013.
MEDAON editorial staff
October 2013.