Biographies, readings, talks with artists, performances – every Tuesday, in the middle of the exhibition: Our guests give personal insight into their experiences, their families’ stories and their involvement with Jewish life in the GDR. With Renate Aris, Marion Brasch, Alena Fürnberg, Cathy Gelbin, Charlotte Misselwitz and many others.
On Tuesdays (until 9 Jan 2024), 5.30 pm

Where
Old Building, level 1, “Event Space“ in the exhibition
Lindenstraße 9–14, 10969 Berlin
Upcoming events
Tue 5 Dec 2023, 5.30 pm
Show and Tell: Albert Wollenberger’s Record Collection, with Judith Wollenberger and Charlotte Misselwitz
Read moreTue 12 Dec 2023, 5.30 pm
Film and Conversation: STIELKE, HEINZ, FIFTEEN ... (Michael Kann, 1987) with Lisa Schoß
Read moreTue 19 Dec 2023, 5.30 pm
Show and Tell: Cathy Gelbin’s German-American-Jewish family in East Berlin
Read moreTue 28 Nov 2023, 5.30 pm
Conversation: Hermann Simon, Historian and Founding Director of the Foundation New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum and Hetty Berg, Director of the JMB; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Michael Kerstgens
Read moreTue 21 Nov 2023, 5.30 pm
Artist Talk with Silvia Dzubas about her photo series Stowaway Holdover
Silvia Dzubas, Stowaway Holdover, photo series, 2013; Jewish Museum Berlin
Read moreTue 14 Nov 2023, 5.30 pm
Film Presentation with Esther Zimmering: “Come fly with me over the Brandenburg Gate”
Josef and Lizzi Zimmering's travel chest, 1930s-1940s; on loan from the Zimmering family, photo: Roman März
Read moreTue 7 Nov 2023, 5.30 pm
Film and Conversation: Professor Mamlock (Konrad Wolf, 1961) with Lisa Schoß
Lisa Schoß, photo: privat
Read moreTue 31 Oct 2023, 5.30 pm
Project Presentation: Jewish [Hi]stories in the GDR – an Interview Portal of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European–Jewish Studies, Potsdam
Read moreTue 24 Oct 2023, 5.30 pm
Reading: Being German Five Different Ways, Irene Selle presents the memoirs of her father Rudolf Schottlaender
Irene Selle, photo: privat
Read moreTue 10 Oct 2023, 5.30 pm
Music and Conversation with Chasan Jalda Rebling
Lin Jaldati, Jalda Rebling, 1984, Copyright: Ulrich Rödiger
Read moreTue 19 Sep 2023, 5.30 pm
Conversation with Contemporary Witness Renate Aris
Group photo of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah celebration of Renate (center) and Heinz-Joachim Aris, Dresden, 13 June 1948; Jewish Museum Berlin, gift of Renate Aris.
Read moreTue 12 Sep 2023, 5.30 pm
A reading and conversation with Alena Fürnberg, hosted by Marion Brasch
Alena Fürnberg in 1955, photo: privat.
Read more

Tue 5 Dec 2023, 5.30 pm
Show and Tell: Albert Wollenberger’s Record Collection, with Judith Wollenberger and Charlotte Misselwitz
The record collection of Albert Wollenberger, former head of cardiovascular research in Berlin-Buch, reflects many different moments in his life. It includes songs by Ernst Busch and Hanns Eisler, the Moonlight sonata signed by a famous New York pianist, pro-Zionist songs from the 1920s youth movement in Berlin, and even calypso music. Judith Wollenberger is joined by journalist Charlotte Misselwitz as she reviews her grandfather’s collection.
Photo: Albert Wollenberger’s Record Collection, photo: Judith Wollenberger

Tue 12 Dec 2023, 5.30 pm
Film and Conversation: STIELKE, HEINZ, FIFTEEN ... (Michael Kann, 1987) with Lisa Schoß
STIELKE, HEINZ, FIFTEEN ... (GDR, 1987) was the debut film of the young director Michael Kann. The protagonist Heinz is a dedicated member of the Hitler Youth who suddenly learns that his father was a Jew. Tall, blond and blue-eyed, Heinz is convinced there must have been some mistake. The film doesn’t shy away from the absurd as it deals with forced otherness and the search for a suitable identity. Selected and presented by literary and film scholar Lisa Schoß.
Film still Stielke, Heinz, Fünfzehn ..., Michael Kann, 1987, Copyright: DEFA, Stiftung Waltraut Pathenheimer

Tue 19 Dec 2023, 5.30 pm
Show and Tell: Cathy Gelbin’s German-American-Jewish family in East Berlin
Film and cultural studies scholar Cathy Gelbin tells the story of her childhood and youth in East Berlin through photographs. She talks about her German-American-Jewish family, her grandmother Gertrude Gelbin, who published English-language books in the GDR, and her step-grandfather Stefan Heym.
Cathy Gelbin in front of her display case in the exhibition Another Country. Jewish in the GDR

Tue 28 Nov 2023, 5.30 pm
Conversation: Hermann Simon, Historian and Founding Director of the Foundation New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum and Hetty Berg, Director of the JMB
When his exhibition “Und lehrt sie: Gedächtnis!“ (And teach them to remember!) opened in East Berlin in October 1988 to commemorate the November pogroms, it was a sensation. Thirty-five years later, Hermann Simon – historian, founding director of the Foundation New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum, long-time board member of the Synagoge Rykestraße, chair of the friend’s association of the Jewish Cemetery Weißensee, and much more – looks back on his life’s work in conversation with Hetty Berg, director of the JMB.
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Michael Kerstgens

Tue 21 Nov 2023, 5.30 pm
Artist Talk with Silvia Dzubas about her photo series Stowaway Holdover
Silvia Dzubas deals with the fate of her father Kurt Dzubas in her photo series Stowaway Holdover. He survived forced labor and concentration camps and eventually went into hiding. After the end of the war, he saw his life's work as building an anti-fascist society. Silvia Dzubas herself fled to West Berlin via Prague and Vienna in 1968.
Silvia Dzubas, Stowaway Holdover, photo series, 2013; Jewish Museum Berlin

Tue 14 Nov 2023, 5.30 pm
Film Presentation with Esther Zimmering
Esther Zimmering presents her short film “Come fly with me over the Brandenburg Gate”, which was commissioned by the JMB. Her documentary film “Swimming Pool in Golan”, released in 2018, engages with her family history in Israel and the GDR. The actress and director was born in Potsdam in 1977. Her grandparents had returned to Germany after exile in Britain.
Josef and Lizzi Zimmering's travel chest, 1930s-1940s; on loan from the Zimmering family, photo: Roman März

Tue 7 Nov 2023, 5.30 pm
Film and Conversation: Professor Mamlock (Konrad Wolf, 1961) with Lisa Schoß
Professor Mamlock (GDR, 1961) is Konrad Wolf’s DEFA production of his father Friedrich Wolf's world-famous eponymous play. In 1933, it was one of the first artistic interventions against antisemitic politics and a call for widespread opposition to National Socialism. Selected and presented by literary and film scholar Lisa Schoß.

Tue 31 Oct 2023, 5.30 pm
Project Presentation: Jewish [Hi]stories in the GDR – an Interview Portal of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European–Jewish Studies, Potsdam
Between 1989 and 2015, several collections of biographical interviews with Jews from the GDR were produced. The Moses Mendelssohn Center for European–Jewish Studies in Potsdam is indexing them and making them available on the portal “Jewish History online”. Here, diverse voices, experiences and perspectives can be explored.

Tue 24 Oct 2023, 5.30 pm
Reading: Being German Five Different Ways Irene Selle presents the memoirs of her father Rudolf Schottlaender
Being German five different ways – literary scholar Irene Selle (b. 1947) presents the memoirs of her father Rudolf Schottlaender (1900–1988), who was known far beyond the borders of the GDR as a philosopher, classicist, translator and journalist. Schottlaender saw himself as a mediator between the systems and remained resistant to political appropriation throughout his entire life.
Irene Selle, photo: privat

Tue 17 Oct 2023, 5.30 pm
Book Club – Anna Seghers’ The Seventh Cross, with Regina Scheer
Read along! The JMB is starting a new series: the JMB Book Club. The first book we will read and discuss is Anna Seghers’ The Seventh Cross. The first edition, published in 1942 while she was in exile in Mexico, is on display in the exhibition. We’ll talk with author Regina Scheer about the book’s historical origins, its significance in East and West Germany, and what it has to say to us today.

Tue 10 Oct 2023, 5.30 pm
Music and Conversation with Chasan Jalda Rebling
Jalda Rebling is an actress, a cantor and specialist in Jewish music. Her mother Lin Jaldati, the grand old dame of Yiddish song, first brought her on stage in 1979 for a commemoration of Anne Frank's 50th birthday. Since then, Jalda Rebling has carried Jewish knowledge to the world through songs and legends.
Lin Jaldati, Jalda Rebling, 1984, Copyright: Ulrich Rödiger

Tue 19 Sep 2023, 5.30 pm
Conversation with Contemporary Witness Renate Aris
As a child, Renate Aris (b. 1935) narrowly escaped deportation to Theresienstadt. She has been an active member of the Jewish community in Chemnitz since the 1980s. To this day, she is head of the Jewish Women's Association, which she (re)founded in 1999. The exhibition tells the story of her and her brother’s bat and bar mitzvahs in 1948, while still in the Soviet occupation zone.

Tue 12 Sep 2023, 5.30 pm
A reading and conversation with Alena Fürnberg, hosted by Marion Brasch
Alena Fürnberg (b. 1947) grew up in Weimar after her parents, Louis and Lotte Fürnberg, fled Czechoslovakia in 1954 for the GDR. In conversation with Marion Brasch, she shares her family’s story and reads poems by her father.

Exhibition Another Country. Jewish in the GDR: Features & Programs
- Exhibition Webpage
- Another Country. Jewish in the GDR: 8 Sep 2023 to 14 Jan 2024
- Accompanying Events
- Current page: Events in the exhibition: GDR on Tuesday: Event with fixed dates, in German
- Concert: Martin Schreier & Stern-Combo Meißen: An Ost-Rock legend at the JMB, 21 Sep 2023
- ...And Facing the Future? – Jewish History and Stories in the GDR: A scholarly conference accompanying the exhibition, 18–20 Oct 2023, in German
- Stories from the GDR – Podium discussion, 19 Oct 2023, in German
- Guided Tours
- Guided Tour in English: Tour with fixed dates (thursdays)
- Guided Tour in German: Tour with fixed dates (saturdays)
- Brunch with Guided Tour: Tour with fixed dates (sundays)
- Public Historic Urban Walk: Jewish in the GDR: – Tour with fixed dates (sundays), in German
- Guided Tour for Groups: Tour by appointment, in several languages
- Historic Urban Walk for Groups: Jewish in the GDR: Tour by appointment, in several languages
- Film Workshop for Groups: Come fly with me over the Brandenburg Gate – by appointment, in German
- Digital Content
- Voices from the GDR: Twelve short film interviews with Jewish perspectives on life and the political system, 2023, in German with English subtitles
- Come Fly With Me Over the Brandenburg Gate: A documentary by Esther Zimmering, in German
- Singled Out and Viewed Suspiciously: Jews in the GDR: Abridged version of Annette Leo’s contribution to the exhibition catalog, 2023
- Jewish in the GDR. A Road Trip with Marion and Lena Brasch: A podcast by Deutschlandfunk Kultur in cooperation with the Jewish Museum Berlin, six episodes, 2023, in German
- Jewish Local History of the GDR: Information about the communities in Dresden, Erfurt, Halle, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Chemnitz and Schwerin on Jewish Places
- City Walk Berlin-East: Tour with Jewish Places from the New Synagogue to the kosher butcher’s shop, school participation project 2022/23
- Publications
- Another Country. Jewish in the GDR: Catalog accompanying the exhibition, English edition, 2023
- Ein anderes Land. Jüdisch in der DDR: Catalog accompanying the exhibition, German edition, 2023
- See also
- East Germany
Events: Upcoming Events for Friends of the Museum (2)