Seven Boxes of Jewish Material

Seven Boxes of Jewish Material - This is the name of the exciting exhibition of the Jewish Museum in Munich, which runs from today. It deals with "Looting and Rediscovery 1938 until today".

Impressively presented and precisely described are the ritual objects that were looted by the Nazis from the synagogues in Lower Franconia at that time.

Spectacular discovery in Würzburg

In the so-called Reichspogromnacht, on November 9 and 10, 1938, synagogues all over Germany were first systematically looted, then destroyed. A large part of the confiscated ritual objects has since been considered missing, while one of them has been scattered all over the world. Two years ago, when the State Museum for Franconia in Würzburg began to sift through its holdings, which had been in storage since 1945, piece by piece and to enter them in an inventory list, a spectacular find was made:
One came across boxes of Jewish Ritual Objects.
There were objects from the communities in Ebelsbach, Gochsheim, Schweinfurt, Miltenberg, Heidingsfeld and Würzburg. Some of them had been preserved, but others had been burned almost beyond recognition or were only fragments.

Masterpiece thanks to cooperation between Würzburg and Munich

We owe the reappraisal and the exhibition, which will also be on display in Würzburg in mid-2019, to a cooperation between the two cities of Würzburg and Munich. All heads were put together. People set to work detective-like, sometimes together with other experts, discussing, researching and analyzing until they knew what they had in their hands. In the case of many objects, it was possible to trace back where they came from; in the case of others, it was only possible to determine what they had been used for. The speeches by Claudia Lichte (State Museum Würzburg) and Bernhard Purin (Jewish Museum Munich) testified to the passion with which the work was carried out. A masterly achievement, in view of the exhibits, some of which were heavily fragmented and destroyed.

Some things make you smile

The fact that among all the terrible things that were discovered, there are some that make you smile is described in the apt Article "Geschändet und geraubt" by Eva-Elisabeth Fischer in today's Süddeutsche Zeitung:

"....Bernhard Purin, director of the Jewish Museum and, together with Kerstin Dembsky, curator of this also historically illuminating exhibition, is an excellent art historian with a tireless zeal for research into the origins and provenance of even badly damaged and looted Jewish cult objects, especially in Franconia.
Purin tells the story of this surprising object: Jupiter, endowed with human features, once adorned a chandelier of the synagogue in Heidingsfeld. In order to comply with the ban on images, his face was hidden behind a wool pompom at the time. But such a story is only a side note of this exhibition, which gives an idea of the former treasure of the Jewish communities in Lower Franconia."

Ingenious: Würzburg returns looted art

What is ingenious from our point of view is that a decision has now also been made about what is to happen with the Judaica: Following a proposal by Achim Könnecke, the City's Cultural Affairs Officer, the Würzburg City Council decided in a decision of principle in October 2018 to return the objects in trust to the Jewish Community in Würzburg.

Dr. Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and Chairman of the Jewish Community in Würzburg, was very happy about this. In his speech at the opening of the exhibition yesterday, Dr. Küppers, the Cultural Officer of the city of Munich, spoke of a decision that should be a model for all communities in Germany.

All this, at a time when anti-Semitism is boiling up again elsewhere, gives cause for hope and invites us to work even harder for reconciliation, respect, tolerance and democracy. Political pics4peace - beautiful!

More information about the return of looted Art by the city of Würzburg:

Mainpost

Fokus Online

Jüdisches Leben Online

More info about the first exhibition on Nazi looted art in Vienna in 1995:

Jewish Museum Blog: Jüdisches Museum Blog