What does it mean to be persecuted? In today’s world, with the troubling increase in autocratic political personalities both abroad and at home, this is a question essential for young people (and old) to address if they are to shape a secure future for themselves and those after them.

The purpose of these booklets, available in both English and German, are to promote thinking about this question, based on the exhibition of Fritz Ascher’s work, along four lines:

1. to offer a brief introduction to the life and art of Fritz Ascher, including the complex
question of his identity

2. to raise, specifically within Ascher’s life and art, the question of how persecution
affected what he produced

3.  to use the discussion of these issues to broaden the issue by

(a) considering the problem of prejudice and how it can lead to persecution, and

(b) to invite students to choose a time, place, and circumstance in which to focus on an individual who has endured persecution and how persecution has affected the art produced (in whatever media) of that individual

4. to consider how one might go about changing the inclination of so many humans to be prejudiced and, if given the power, to persecute others based on those prejudices. How can we as individuals, be part of the process of tikkun olam: “repairing the world”?