Russians Jews Germans

Photographs by Michael Kerstgens from 1992 to the Present

20 April to 26 August 2012

After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989/90, nearly a quarter of a million Jewish immigrants - so-called "quota refugees" - came to Germany from the former Soviet Union. This wave of immigration brought about lasting changes in the German Jewish community. Michael Kerstgens is one of the few photographers to have documented - intensively and over a long period of time - the immigration of Russian-speaking Jews to Germany from the former Soviet Union.

Michael Kerstgens, Seniors' retreat at the Kurhotel Eden-Park in Bad Kissingen, Bad Kissingen 2001 © Jewish Museum Berlin

In his work, Michael Kerstgens focuses on the social and religious challenges facing Jewish immigrants to Germany as well as on the situation of long-established German Jews. He records religious celebrations and social events within the Jewish community, everyday scenes from transition houses, and individual families' private moments.

Michael Kerstgens, Communal kitchen in the transitional home Weiden, Upper Palatinate, 2001 © Jewish Museum Berlin

The photographs relate farewells and new beginnings, those arriving and those settled, and the search for belonging and religious tradition. They can be regarded an initial visual reflection on a process which has not yet reached its conclusion and whose outcome is accordingly still unknown.

Michael Kerstgens, The Jewish community Purim ball, Weiden, Upper Palatinate, 2001 © Jewish Museum Berlin

Michael Kerstgens, Family retreat on the subject of Passover in Bad Sobernheim, Bad Sobernheim 2001 © Jewish Museum Berlin

Michael Kerstgens, Jewish community Hanukkah ball, Berlin 1992 © Jewish Museum Berlin

The photographer shot new portraits of some of his protagonists from the 90s, expressly for this exhibit, revealing the immigrants' current circumstances and often astonishing progress.

Michael Kerstgens, The Troitschanski family's kitchen, Berlin 1992 © Jewish Museum Berlin

Michael Kerstgens, The Troychanskiy family - as their name has been spelled since they arrived in Canada - at the Shabbat meal, Toronto, Canada 2011 © Jewish Museum Berlin

Encompassing 162 shots in black and white, the series has belonged to the Photo Collection of the Jewish Museum Berlin since the beginning of 2011. Nearly half of them are on view in the exhibition as inkjet prints.

The photographs are being shown in parallel with the exhibit "Berlin Transit. Jewish Migrants from Eastern Europe in the 1920s". They extend the historical view of the theme of migration right up to the present and trace the question of how Jewish life in Germany has changed with the immigration of Russian-speaking Jews through the 20th century.