Anna Junge (associated)

First state examination in law (HU Berlin / Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, Budapest)

European M.A. in the Holocaust Communication and Tolerance Program (Touro College Berlin)

American M.A. in the Jewish Studies Program (Touro College Berlin)

PhD student at the Center for Research on Antisemitism, TU Berlin

PhD Project

Unexpected neighborhood. Jewish-non-Jewish confrontations 1945–1948 in rural Hesse (Working Title)

Early in the morning of September 6, 1942, in the small Hessian town of Rauischholzhausen near Marburg, the last local Jewish residents were driven onto trucks to the applause of some neighbors and deported to Theresienstadt. Immediately after their removal, their houses were looted wildly, and the last of their belongings were immediately auctioned off to the public.

But three of the deportees survived the Shoah and returned to the village in 1945. One of them reopened a general store. The other two carried out robberies on Nazis, and shortly before they emigrated to the USA, initiated the opening of a local Jewish agricultural school in the summer of 1946. Around 150 Jews who had fled Poland lived in the ballroom of a centrally located inn and worked on a large estate that also served as a workplace for many non-Jewish local residents. Four years after its declaration as "Jew-free", there were more Jews in the village between the summer of 1946 and the end of 1947 than ever before.

The subject of my doctorate is Jewish-non-Jewish encounters in Germany after the Shoah, namely during the first post-war years (1945–1948) in rural Hesse. This story is multifaceted: Among the allies were German-Jewish soldiers who visited their villages of origin and Jewish cemeteries. Some rural Jews survived as spouses or children in so-called 'mixed marriages.' Others returned from concentration and extermination camps, a few from hiding, and very few from exile - visiting to find the whereabouts of friends and relatives, but also to stay long-term. From 1946 onwards, Eastern European Jewish displaced persons (DPs) joined them in some West German villages. Most of the Jewish DPs in the American zone spent the post-war years in large refugee camps. But about 20% of them lived outside of any camp structure in German cities and communities. Another 12% lived in kibbutzim / Hachsharoth, i.e. smaller training centers and farms to prepare for Israel / Palestine on land confiscated by the US military. For example, between 1945 and 1948, some villages became temporary sanctuaries for Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe.

German perpetrators, German-Jewish returnees, kibbutzniks - they all met in such a small space. How was it possible to live together in one place after the criminal story? How was 'living together?' Who was referring to whom, in what way and why? What were the reasons to stay? Was there a rapprochement, an exchange about what happened? Violence and old friendships, business and local club life - my project aims to investigate diverse interrelationships in villages with a Jewish population in the first years after the Shoah. The topic is to be researched micro-historically using the example of some localities in the Hessian district of Marburg-Biedenkopf. In addition to viewing all conceivable sources, oral history sources should also be included, and personal conversations should be held with Jewish and non-Jewish contemporary witnesses.