Brochures and Annual Reports

Through the lens of eight photographs, this brochure introduces the Dubnow Institute. Named after the Russian Jewish historian, this research institute based in Leipzig was founded in 1995 following a decision by the Saxon state parliament.

The cover photo shows the 61-year-old Russian Jewish historian Simon Dubnow (1860, Mstislaw, Russian Empire – 1941, Riga) packing up his library before his departure for Berlin in April 1922. He did not see a future in Soviet Russia either for himself or for his cause – the recognition of the Jewish collective as a people and a diasporic nation. In Germany, he completed his magnum opus, the ten-volume World History of the Jewish People, while at the same time witnessing the rise of National Socialism. In 1933, he fled from the Nazis to Riga. Following the occupation of the Baltic region by the Germans, he was murdered there in December 1941 alongside the majority of the Jews of Latvia.

Like in a burning lens, this scene of his departure compresses the agenda of the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture, which is named after Simon Dubnow. His biography epitomizes the Jewish experiences of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: emancipation and autonomy, multilingualism, mobility, and the transfer of knowledge, but also forced migration, fl ight, expulsion, and experiences of violence. Dubnow’s historiography, which is characterized by the embedding of the Jewish experience
in its surrounding contexts, shapes the research approach of the institute. His sphere of activity, namely Central and Eastern Europe, augmented by the lands of Jewish emigration – above all Israel and America – form the focus of its scholarly activities. At the same time, this photograph of a box of books points to another important research topic: objects that migrate, property that is left behind, and collections that are scattered and destroyed.

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The exhibition and its brochure focus on photographs of Jewish life in Poland immediately after the Holocaust. Both were realized in close cooperation with the Jewish Historical Institute Emanuel Ringelblum in Warsaw, which preserves one of the most important collections on Polish-Jewish history. A unique collection of images, in particular photo albums, provides an insight into the ambivalence of the first postwar years.

Jewish life in Poland immediately after the Holocaust was full of ambivalences and contradictory experiences: between self-determination and violence, mourning and new beginnings, reconstruction and emigration. In Lower Silesia, on former German territory, Jewish life briefly flourished again for a few years. At the same time, there were repeated attacks against Jews throughout the country, the largest of which was the Kielce Pogrom in the summer of 1946. This escalation of violence was one of the main reasons for the emigration of a large number of Holocaust survivors by the end of the decade.

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Further information on the exhibition

The broschure »Think Lab«, developed in the research project »Shifting Knowledge,« presents the research of the Dubnow Institute in about 20 articles. For this brochure, however, we have deliberately loosened our Institute’s structure. In the Institute’s everyday life, all of the topics, mentioned in the broschure, are anchored in one of our three research units, namely »Politics,« »Law,« and »Knowledge,« or in the division »Knowledge Transfer.« For the brochure, however, we have invited colleagues and guests from various sections to cooperate and write jointly. By developing current and forward-looking overarching methodologies and questions, this collaboration has uncovered new innovative perspectives which we are now pleased to present to you in a collection of short essays. Each one is a glance through the window in our research institution. We wish you an inspiring and thoughtprovoking read.

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