Dear Friends,

It is almost Thanksgiving here in the US. And I thank you for being part of our community. Your interest and engagement, your questions and comments, your ideas and support have helped shape who we are today.

And it’s been a productive year – not over yet! – with wonderful long-term and new partners. I’ll address the exhibitions and other projects another time.
In 20 virtual and in-person events we have discovered and discussed incredible art – some created in harrowing circumstances. We have commemorated and celebrated the art and their creators, who can inspire us all. The decisions they were confronted with and their life stories are as relevant as ever.

Thank you to the scholars and the artist’s descendants who inspired us with us their research and knowledge, and to the donors who made these events possible.

As we are all getting into holiday gear, we have three events lined up for you: the first two event give those who live in the Tristate area the possibility to attend a live event, meet and shmooze, and a virtual book talk, which will conclude this year’s programming:

IN-PERSON EVENT
Monday, December 1, 6:30-8:00pm EST
Resistance and Art:
The “Red Orchestra” Anti-Nazi Group in Berlin
Presentation by Stefan Roloff, Berlin (Germany)
School of Visual Arts, 133/141 West 21st Street, Room 101C, New York, NY

The event will be recorded. It will not be streamed.

Katja Meirowsky, Photo of cabaret performance at the jazz club “Die Badewanne” [“The Bathtub”] in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, 1949/50.

BFA Visual and Critical Studies, the SVA Honors Program and the Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art host a lecture by painter and filmmaker Stefan Roloff, exploring the visual art and resistance of three members of the “Red Orchestra” underground anti-Nazi group. Finger food served; RSVP required.

The so-called “Red Orchestra” fought against the Third Reich within Germany from 1933 to 1942. The Gestapo labeled them as Communists and traitors, a theory that was upheld by Allied Secret Services until recently. Historians now officially recognize their work as that of the largest and most diverse civil anti-Nazi resistance group. The participants held a variety of political and religious beliefs while representing the gamut of German society. Many artists were among them and forty percent were women. Putting an end to Hitler was their common goal. In 1942, more than 50 members were betrayed and murdered.

This event is part of the online series Flight or Fight. stories of artists under repression.

ONLINE AND IN-PERSON EVENT
WEDNESDAY, December 3, 12:00PM EST
Flight or Fight? Artists in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945
Presentation by Rachel Stern, New York
Kupferberg Holocaust Center
@ Queensborough Community College, Queens, NY

The event will be live streamed and recorded.

Between 1933 and 1945, the National Socialist regime controlled artistic work in Germany. Join Rachel Stern, founding director of the Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art, for a discussion about the system of fear and control installed by the Nazis, its impact on the national cultural landscape, and artists’ strategies of survival.

This event is part of the 2025-26 KHC and National Endowment for the Humanities Colloquium, “Resistance, Resilience and Reinvention: Artists and Academics Escaping Nazism.” It is co-sponsored by the Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center in White Plains; the Center for Genocide and Human Rights Research in Africa and the Diaspora at Northeastern Illinois University; the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University; the Holocaust, Genocide & Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan University; the Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at Western Washington University; the Reiff Center for Human Rights & Conflict Resolution at Christopher Newport University; the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University; the Cohen Institute for Holocaust & Genocide Studies at Keene State College; the Martin-Springer Institute at Northern Arizona University; and the Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art.

For our final 2025 event, we travel back to France:

ONLINE EVENT
WEDNESDAY, December 10, 12:00PM EST
Looted! The Nazi Art Plunder of Jewish Families in France
Book talk by Peter Elliott (France)

In this book talk, Peter Elliott speaks about the lives and art collections of four French Jewish families, whose art was looted, and whose businesses were confiscated during the Nazi Occupation of France (1940-44). The story is of their lives, their businesses and art collections, and the journeys of their paintings during wartime and beyond. The four Protagonist families all made an important cultural and economic contribution to France.

Peter Elliott was a career lawyer, mostly in England, but at an early stage became immersed in Francophone culture. He now lives with his wife in the Languedoc region of France. His lifelong interest in history has drawn him to biography. Since 2012 he has published five biographical books, two of which are art books and combine his love of history and art. His interests and his life in France have led directly to this French history.

This event is part of the online series “Flight or Fight. stories of artists under repression.”

We invite you to watch, re-watch and pass on the recordings of our November virtual events:

This month, we feature two exhibitions in the US, which will close before the end of the year:

Lost and Found: The Art and Life of Samson Schames is on view until December 21, 2025 at the Center for Jewish History in New York.

Born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the artist Samson Schames (1898-1967) fled Nazi persecution to England in 1939 and later emigrated to the United States with his future wife, Edith, in 1948 and 1947. His work, which blends modernist aesthetics with spiritual and historical depth, is recognized for its innovative technique and poignant reflections on exile, memory, and identity. This is the first US retrospective of his work.

Remembrance and Renewal: American Artists and the Holocaust, 1940-1970 is on view until December 14, 2025, at Indiana University’s Eskenazi Museum of Art.

Remembrance and Renewal is the first exhibition to examine the impact of the Holocaust on the development of midcentury American art. It brings together 74 works of art from collections nationwide, featuring a wide range of aesthetic approaches by artists both canonical and little known.

Please donate generously to make our work possible. THANK YOU.

The Fritz Ascher Society is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization. Your donation is fully tax deductible.

Thank you for your loyalty and enthusiasm for what we do.

Happy Thanksgiving to our American audience

and best wishes to all,

Rachel Stern

Executive Director