Violence as Image: Images of October 7 in the Mirror of Visual Memory of the Shoah
Book Presentation and Discussion with the Author Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann and Annette Vowinckel (in German)
In conversation with historian Annette Vowinckel, Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann presents his newly published book Gewalt als Bild. Die Bilder vom 7. Oktober im Spiegel der visuellen Erinnerung an die Shoah (Violence as Image: Images of October 7 in the Mirror of Visual Memory of the Shoah). The images and video recordings of the massacres and violence in the towns and communities of Israel located on the border with Gaza have had a worldwide impact through their dissemination on social media. They have caused shock and horror among Israelis and Jews and provoked associations with earlier forms of collective experiences of violence. They have been analyzed and examined, used for information and propaganda purposes—and were already being questioned in the first days after the massacres.
Sun 5 Oct 2025, 4 pm
Where
W. M. Blumenthal Academy,
Klaus Mangold Auditorium
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
(Opposite the Museum)
In his essay, Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann traces the impact and functioning of the images of violence from October 7 and describes practices and forms of use against the backdrop of visual violence history, especially that of the Shoah. In doing so, gaps in visual memory culture become apparent and questions arise as to whether the visual history of the Shoah can be told without violence and how the images of the Shoah continue to have an impact on today's experiences of violence.
Moderated by Daniel Wildmann, Program Director of the W. Michael Blumenthal Academy of the JMB
Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann
Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann is Professor of German Studies and Visual Culture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of essays and books on cinematic memory of the Holocaust, the use of archival images, historical docudramas, and depictions of political violence in film. His book Gewalt als Bild: Die Bilder vom 7. Oktober im Spiegel der visuellen Erinnerung an die Shoah will be published in October 2025 by Neofelis Verlag.
Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann; photo: Bernd Wannenmacher
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Annette Vowinckel
Prof. Dr. Annette Vowinckel is head of the Media and Information Society Department at the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam. Together with Rebekka Grossmann, she published Die Welt aus den Fugen. Geschichte und Gegenwart des 7. Oktobers 2023 (The World Out of Joint: History and Present of October 7, 2023) in Zeitgeschichte online (October 7, 2024). In 2016, her book Agenten der Bilder. Fotografisches Handeln im 20. Jahrhundert (Agents of Images: Photographic Action in the 20th Century) was published by Wallstein Verlag.
Annette Vowinckel; photo: Gerd Illing
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