East Germany's Jewish Question: The Return and Preservation of Jewish Sites in East Berlin and Potsdam, 1945–1989

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 606-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Meng
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
German State ◽  
Current State ◽  
Communal Property ◽  
State Association ◽  
East German

InSeptember 1950, Julius Meyer, head of the State Association of Jewish Communities in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), sent a letter to the Finance Ministry inquiring about the current state of Jewish communal property. Throughout the immediate postwar years, he and other Jewish leaders had requested, though with little success, the return of Jewish property and assistance to rebuild Jewish sites. With the occupation now over, Meyer hoped that the newly formed East German state might be sympathetic to the needs of theGemeinde(a religious community of Jews). He noted that the Jewish community had “still not acquired its own property” since most of it remained “under the control of the state” or in the hands of those who had seized it during the Nazi program of “Aryanization.” Meyer also pointed out that the Gemeinde needed money to reconstruct the numerous synagogues and Jewish cemeteries that had been damaged duringKristallnachtand World War II. “We ask,” he explained, “that you take into consideration the fact that the Jewish community, because of the extermination policy of the fascist state, finds itself in a situation like no other religious community.”

The Cosmopolitan and the National

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael N. Barnett
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The State ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
American Jews ◽  
World War ◽  
American Jewry ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The Creation ◽  
State Of Israel

This chapter covers the period between World War II and 1967. In many ways 1948 was a decisive moment in the foreign policies of American Jews. This is the year that two different solutions to the Jewish Problem and the Jewish Question took firm institutional shape—the State of Israel and the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. American Jews were involved in both developments. In retrospect, two elements stand out in this period. After decades of worrying about the tensions between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, they began to relax. It also is surprising how little the creation of Israel affected American Jewry, and that tepidness stems partly from the fact that American Jews had never been die-hard nationalists.

The Development of Anti-Hasidic Criticism among the Maskilim of the Congress Kingdom, 1815–1830

2005 ◽  
pp. 72-115
Author(s):  
Marcin Wodziński
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The State ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
Great Debate ◽  
The Status ◽  
Communal Institutions

This chapter traces the development of anti-hasidic criticism among the maskilim of the Congress Kingdom. From 1815, the ‘Jewish question’ was one of the main topics of public debate, preoccupying writers and statesmen throughout the whole constitutional period (1815–30) of the Kingdom of Poland. The state's most prominent politicians, such as Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, voiced their opinions on the status of the Jewish community and its reform. Representatives of the Jewish community also participated in the great debate, which lasted from 1818 to 1822. Moreover, other Polish maskilim were involved in a variety of activities aimed at ‘civilizing’ the Jewish people, such as attempting to establish new communal institutions representing Enlightenment values, or sending reports and memoranda to the state authorities. The most active of these maskilim included Antoni Eisenbaum, Jakub Tugendhold, Ezechiel Hoge, and Abraham Stern. The hasidic issue is either completely absent from their views, or features marginally. Only one Polish maskil, Abraham Stern, gave it prominence in his public activities. The chapter also looks at two reports written for the Voivodeship Commission in Kalisz in 1820, which provide an example of a reticent attitude towards hasidism. The Kalisz voivodeship authorities availed themselves of the services and opinions of Jewish modernizing circles, and invited them to co-operate with them in their attempts to ‘civilize’ the Jewish population.

Soldiers, Citizens, and the State: East German Army Officers in Post-Unification Germany

2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-287
Author(s):  
Andrew Bickford
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The State ◽  
Smooth Transition ◽  
The West ◽  
German Government ◽  
German State ◽  
German Army ◽  
Army Officers ◽  
East German ◽  
The Cold War

Despite official narratives of a relatively smooth transition, of the merging of “those things which belong together,” German unification and the formation of a new German state has been an uneven project filled with friction and animosity. While the West German government celebrated the “victory” of unification, and stated that all East Germans wanted unification, one group of East Germans did not look forward to the dissolution of the GDR: members of the East German military, the Nationale Volksarmee (National People's Army, or NVA). Disbanded immediately upon unification, the overwhelming majority of NVA officers were left unemployed overnight, stripped of their status as officers and portrayed by the West Germans as the “losers” of the Cold War. For these men, unification was not a joyous, desired event; rather, it represented the end of their careers, security, status, and the state they had sworn to defend. As such, the “fall” into democracy for these men was from the start fraught with uncertainty, disappointment, anomie, and a profound sense of loss.

Slovakia

2019 ◽  
pp. 401-414
Author(s):  
Michael J. Bazyler ◽  
Kathryn Lee Boyd ◽  
Kristen L. Nelson ◽  
Rajika L. Shah
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
World War ◽  
Nazi Occupation ◽  
Velvet Revolution ◽  
Communal Property ◽  
Property Transfers ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Independent Country

During World War II, Slovakia (previously part of the independent country of Czechoslovakia) became a vassal state of Nazi Germany. Roughly 70,000 Jews were deported from Slovakia. Immediately after World War II, Czechoslovakia enacted legislation invalidating property transfers made during Nazi occupation. The measures were short-lived, however, because the country fell under Communist rule that resulted in a second wave of confiscations from all persons. It was not until after the Velvet Revolution in 1989 that new immovable property restitution laws were enacted for private and communal property. In 2002, Slovakia entered into an agreement with the Jewish community of Slovakia to accept a sum amounting to 10 percent of the estimated value of unrestituted Jewish heirless property, as payment for heirless property that had previously reverted to the state. Slovakia endorsed the Terezin Declaration in 2009 and the Guidelines and Best Practices in 2010.

Slovenia

2019 ◽  
pp. 415-430
Author(s):  
Michael J. Bazyler ◽  
Kathryn Lee Boyd ◽  
Kristen L. Nelson ◽  
Rajika L. Shah
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Private Property ◽  
World War ◽  
Foreign Nationals ◽  
Communal Property ◽  
The Law ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Property Restitution

Yugoslavia (which included present-day Slovenia) was occupied by Germany, Italy, and Hungary during World War II, and immovable property was confiscated. Roughly 90 percent of the Jews who lived in Slovenia before World War II were murdered during the war. Postwar Yugoslavia enacted a short-lived property restitution law. As Yugoslavia fell under Communist rule, widespread nationalization resulted in a second wave of property confiscations. Slovenia gained its independence in 1991 and that same year passed a denationalization law, which was later amended to permit foreign nationals to make property claims. The law addresses the restitution of private property nationalized between 1945 and 1963. The law has also been used to gain return of communal property. Some communal property has been returned to the Jewish community in Slovenia, despite lack of specific legislation. Slovenia has not passed legislation for the restitution of heirless property. Slovenia endorsed the Terezin Declaration in 2009 and the Guidelines and Best Practices in 2010.

Norway

2019 ◽  
pp. 303-310
Author(s):  
Michael J. Bazyler ◽  
Kathryn Lee Boyd ◽  
Kristen L. Nelson ◽  
Rajika L. Shah
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
World War ◽  
Nazi Occupation ◽  
Communal Property ◽  
The Government

During World War II, Norway was occupied by Germany. Its collaborationist government and Nazi administration passed laws stripping Norwegian Jews of their property. Norway’s government-in-exile in London passed a decree during the war guaranteeing the restitution of private and communal property. After the war, all property—whether owned by Jews or non-Jews—was in theory subject to restitution. However, a 1997 report commissioned by the Norwegian government found that, in many instances, the complicated and lengthy restitution processes failed to fully restore to Norwegian Jews what had been confiscated during the Nazi occupation. In 1998, as a result of the report, the government approved a law on the historical and moral settlement for the treatment in Norway of the economic liquidation of the Jewish minority during World War II. The comprehensive compensation for the Jewish community covered all private, communal, and heirless property claims. Norway endorsed the Terezin Declaration in 2009 and the Guidelines and Best Practices in 2010.

scholarly journals “MACEDONIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH (MOC)” IN FORMER YUGOSLAV STATE

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-215
Author(s):  
Marko Nikolic ◽  
Duško Dimitrijević
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
National Socialist

After World War II, multi-religious and multi-national socialist Yugoslavia faced the need to resolve the complex national issue or actually to bring it into accord and make closer to the internal, but also to the international goals and interests of the Yugoslav state. Its atheistic-secularist nature basically conditioned its relationship to the religious communities in the state, whose “potentials” should be controlled, directed and used in a desirable way. The state, actually, supported the secular (non-church) principle by which every nation should have its own Church, striving in time directly, consistently and firmly to exert influence on its application in practice as such. Taking such activities, it disregarded the church reasons and needs, what particularly made a negative impact on the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC). The Roman Catholic Church (RCC), as the second church (religious) community in the country by the number of its believers, recognised that its interests coincided with such endeavours and activities of the state. It discretely supported the political process of gaining of “autocephaly of the Macedonian Orthodox Church” (MOC).

Serbia

2019 ◽  
pp. 385-400
Author(s):  
Michael J. Bazyler ◽  
Kathryn Lee Boyd ◽  
Kristen L. Nelson ◽  
Rajika L. Shah
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
Property Law ◽  
World War ◽  
Communal Property ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Property Restitution

Yugoslavia (which included present-day Serbia) was invaded by the Axis powers in 1941. Nazi Germany established a brutal occupation. Other parts of modern-day Serbia were occupied by Hungary, Bulgaria and Italy. Roughly 85 percent of the Jews who lived in Serbia before World War II were murdered. Postwar war Yugoslavia enacted a short-lived property restitution law. As Yugoslavia fell under Communist rule, widespread nationalization resulted in a second wave of property confiscations. Restitution began in the 2000s. Serbia is the only country that has enacted private property restitution legislation since endorsing the Terezin Declaration in 2009. Serbia has also passed communal property legislation—albeit with key limitations whose effects have disproportionately negatively impacted the Jewish community. In February 2016, Serbia enacted heirless property restitution legislation and the first country to enact an heirless property law since the Terezin Declaration was drafted in 2009. Serbia endorsed the Terezin Declaration in 2009 and the Guidelines and Best Practices in 2010.

Book Reviews

2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 88-107
Author(s):  
Louise K. Davidson-Schmich ◽  
Jennifer A. Yoder ◽  
Friederike Eigler ◽  
Joyce M. Mushaben ◽  
Alexandra Schwell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Print Media ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The West ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
German State ◽  
East German ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

Konrad H. Jarausch, United Germany: Debating Processes and Prospects Reviewed by Louise K. Davidson-Schmich Nick Hodgin and Caroline Pearce, ed. The GDR Remembered:Representations of the East German State since 1989 Reviewed by Jennifer A. Yoder Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East: Forced Migration and the Politics of Memory, 1945-1970 Reviewed by Friederike Eigler Peter H. Merkl, Small Town & Village in Bavaria: The Passing of a Way of Life Reviewed by Joyce M. Mushaben Barbara Thériault, The Cop and the Sociologist. Investigating Diversity in German Police Forces Reviewed by Alexandra Schwell Clare Bielby, Violent Women in Print: Representations in the West German Print Media of the 1960s and 1970s Reviewed by Katharina Karcher Michael David-Fox, Peter Holquist, and Alexander M. Martin, ed., Fascination and Enmity: Russia and Germany as Entangled Histories, 1914-1945 Reviewed by Jennifer A. Yoder

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document