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THIS
WEEK
Reluctant Dissidents - Jews in Eastern Germany
Cathy Gelbin
How were Jewish survivors treated in East Germany after 1949? Did Jews support the communist régime? Who dissented?
Cathy Gelbin reveals a new perspective on the Jewish presence in the GDR between 1949 and 1989. Jews who remained there after the Stalinist purges of the 1950’s have been considered supporters of the Communist regime. Cathy asserts that a striking number of Shoah survivors and their descendants participated in dissident activities from the late
1960’s. She will introduce us to the remarkable personal histories and cultural activities of high-ranking politicians, public intellectuals and Jewish community activists, among them some who progressed from assent to the régime to dissident activities in the GDR of the 1970s and 1980s.
Cathy S. Gelbin (PhD, MA Cornell University) is Professor of Film and German Studies at the University of Manchester. A film historian and cultural studies scholar, she has worked on Holocaust representations and modern German-Jewish culture with particular interest in issues of gender, sexuality and race. She is co-editor of the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book for the Study of German-Jewish History and Culture (Oxford Journals) and serves on the Board of Directors
and Trustees of the Leo Baeck Institute London. Her book publications include The Golem Returns: From German Romantic Literature to Global Jewish Culture;Jewish Culture in the Age of Globalization; and Cosmopolitanisms and the Jews.
