»Deportation of German Jews from Szczecin in 1940«

The German-Polish House, in cooperation with the Historical Institute of the University of Szczecin and the International Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies (MOBI) of the University of Szczecin, is organising a book presentation by Prof. Andrea Löw at the Książnica Pomorska Szczecin Library on 30 May 2025. She will present her book "Deported. ‘Always with one foot in the grave’ - Experiences of German Jews", which focuses on the deportations of German Jews. The book centres around German-speaking Jews - or people defined and persecuted as ‘Jews’ by the National Socialists, many of whom felt themselves to be Germans first and foremost. They were deported to Riga, Minsk or the killing centres of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, among others.

Following the book presentation, Prof. Dr Jörg Hackmann, Director of the International Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies (MOBI US) at the University of Szczecin, will present a project on the "Topography of Jewish Szczecin before the Holocaust".

The event will be moderated by Dr Eryk Krasucki from the Historical Institute of the University of Szczecin.

A Collective Narrative Based on Hundreds of Testimonies

The first major, multifaceted account of the experiences of Jews who were deported from the German Reich to occupied Eastern Europe during the Nazi regime. Based on hundreds of letters, postcards, diaries, video recordings and many other sources, historian Andrea Löw weaves the individual stories into a harrowing testimony. A testimony that is all the more important as the last surviving victims of the Shoah will soon no longer be able to tell their stories themselves.

From autumn 1941, the Jews remaining in the German Reich were systematically deported ‘to the East’. The deportation order was relentless - one suitcase was allowed, there was hardly any time to organise everything and say goodbye. Then people were torn from their previous lives. Those who could, wrote letters to relatives, encouraging them and themselves, but also discussing their worries and fears. People also wrote letters and postcards during the transport, in the ghettos and the camps, and diaries and chronicles have survived that were written during the situation itself - this is what makes these testimonies so direct.
 

Andrea Löw uses the voices of individual people to compose a narrative that makes the reader emotionally aware of the enormity of the crime. By letting them speak for themselves, the people become visible - as mothers, children, grandparents, lovers, young and old. They describe their fears and hopes, the stages leading up to their departure, the transport and survival in the ghetto. For most, certain death awaited them at their destination; the survivors tell of imprisonment, escape and rescue. They were all people who had to experience the incomprehensible - this book brings them very close to us, with all their courage and suffering.
 

Anyone who wants to know what is behind the names and places on the many Stolpersteine in German cities will find the people's stories in this book. From Berlin and Hamburg, Leipzig and Munich, Dresden, Stuttgart, Cologne, Hanover, Vienna, Wroclaw or Szczecin and many other places.

© S. Fischer Verlage, Blurb

Prof. Dr Andrea Löw is a historian, author and academic director of the Centre for Holocaust Studies at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich. She is also an honorary professor at the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Mannheim and editor of Sehepunkte. She has been involved in various research projects, including the Encyclopaedia of the Lodz/Litzmannstadt ghetto, graphic novels and the communication of Holocaust history and the Auswahl-Edition of the Ringelblum archive. Her publications include the books Juden im Getto Litzmannstadt. Lebensbedingungen, Selbstwahrnehmung, Verhalten (2006) and Das Warschauer Getto. Alltag und Widerstand im Angesicht der Vernichtung together with Markus Roth (2013). Her research focuses on the history of the Nazi persecution of Jews, in particular ghettoisation in occupied Poland and Jewish testimonies from ghettos.

Prof Dr Jörg Hackmann is a historian, author and professor of Eastern European History at the University of Szczecin. In 2021, he was named the University of Szczecin's Researcher of the Year in the Humanities and Social Sciences group.  He has been involved in various research projects, including Mare - Pomerania - Confinium. The sea - Pomerania - the border region as places of German-Polish dialogue. Cross-border network for scientific cooperation and historical education on the Baltic Sea and the Oder region from 2021 to 2022, Public History and the Crisis of Liberal Democracies - Regional Perspectives (Frankfurt / Oder - Szczecin) from 2020 to 2021 and Development of Humanities Border Government Studies. The Oder Region in Transnational Perspective (University of Szczecin, European University Viadrina) from 2018 to 2019. From 2021 to 2023 he was involved in the research project Topography of Jewish Life in Szczecin: From the End of the 19th Century to the Shoah. Among other memberships, he is Managing Director of Academia Baltica, President Elect of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies and a member of the Baltic Historical Commission.

Dr Eryk Krasucki is a historian specialising in contemporary history and a professor at the Institute of History at the University of Szczecin.