Exile Archives - Fritz Ascher Society

Apr 30, 2023

Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1968), from Berlin to New York.
A life in photography
Talk by granddaughter Nadia Blumenfeld Charbit, Paris (France)

Rachel Stern2023-06-07T14:29:04-04:00April 30th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1968), from Berlin to New York.
A life in photography
Talk by granddaughter Nadia Blumenfeld Charbit, Paris (France)

Photographer Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969) survived two world wars to become one of the world's most highly-paid fashion photographers and a key influence on the development of photography as an art form. An experimenter and innovator, he produced an extensive body of work including drawings, collages, portraits and nudes, celebrity portraiture, advertising campaigns and his renowned fashion photography both in black and white and color. In this talk, Paris-based granddaughter Nadia Blumenfeld Charbit gives her personal insights into the life and work of the photographer Erwin Blumenfeld. Introduced by Rachel Stern, director of the Fritz Ascher Society. Image above: Erwin Blumenfeld, Double Self-Portrait with Linhoff, Paris, 1938 © Erwin Blumenfeld Estate Born to [...]

Mar 28, 2023

The Missing Archive:
Bauhaus Designers and the Holocaust.
Presentation by Elizabeth Otto, PhD, Buffalo, NY

Rachel Stern2023-05-03T14:36:21-04:00March 28th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on The Missing Archive:
Bauhaus Designers and the Holocaust.
Presentation by Elizabeth Otto, PhD, Buffalo, NY

Histories of Germany’s Bauhaus art and design school (1919–33) usually position it exclusively as a movement in exile as soon as the Nazis took power in 1933. In fact, the vast majority of its members remained and embraced Nazism, survived it, or became its victims. In this talk, art historian Elizabeth Otto scrutinizes traces of the work and lives of Bauhäusler who, through their imprisonment and often deaths in the concentration-camp system, have largely been lost to the history of the Bauhaus movement. Using archival sources—often scant materials preserved by family members and friends, including documents, photographs, and private memoirs—she reconstructs aspects of these artists’ work and lives and considers how to write the histories that Nazi violence has taken [...]

Dec 11, 2022

DOROTHY BOHM (1924-2023): A WORLD OBSERVED
Lecture by Monica Bohm-Duchen, London (UK)

Rachel Stern2023-03-20T06:43:11-04:00December 11th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on DOROTHY BOHM (1924-2023): A WORLD OBSERVED
Lecture by Monica Bohm-Duchen, London (UK)

Dorothy Bohm was born Dorothea Israelit in Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia) in 1924 into an assimilated, affluent and cultured Jewish milieu. In 1932 her father chose to move the family to Memel (now Klaipeda) in Lithuania, but following the Nazi occupation of Memelland in March 1939, her parents decided to send their daughter, aged 14, to the safety of England, where she arrived in June 1939. She wasn’t to see her parents and sister again for over twenty years. Image above (appears as detail): Dorothy Bohm, Venice Carnival, 1987 © Dorothy Bohm Archive Dorothy Bohm, Self-Portrait, 1942, age 18. © Dorothy Bohm Archive Dorothy Bohm, Ascona, 1948. © Dorothy Bohm Archive [...]

Nov 7, 2022

Back into the Light.
Four Women Artists – Their Works. Their Paths.
Lecture by Eva Atlan, PhD, Frankfurt (Germany)

Rachel Stern2023-02-26T09:25:37-05:00November 7th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Back into the Light.
Four Women Artists – Their Works. Their Paths.
Lecture by Eva Atlan, PhD, Frankfurt (Germany)

Erna Pinner, Rosy Lilienfeld, Amalie Seckbach, and Ruth Cahn were among the first women artists in Frankfurt to enjoy professional success. Throughout the Roaring Twenties, these four Jewish women left their mark on Frankfurt’s art scene, published and exhibited internationally, cultivated a cosmopolitan lifestyle, and competed with their male colleagues. When the National Socialists seized power, their careers came to an abrupt end. From then on, they were persecuted as Jews and their works ostracized; later, after the end of World War II, they were largely forgotten. Now, “Back into the Light” is at long last bringing them back to the public eye. The departure point is an article by art historian Sascha Schwabacher, published May 1935 [...]

Aug 9, 2022

Out of Exile.
The Photography of Fred Stein (1909-1967)
With Son Peter Stein and Curator Ulrike Kuschel, Berlin (Germany)

Rachel Stern2022-11-02T14:42:41-04:00August 9th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Out of Exile.
The Photography of Fred Stein (1909-1967)
With Son Peter Stein and Curator Ulrike Kuschel, Berlin (Germany)

Fred Stein lived through some of the greatest upheavals of the 20th century. He escaped Nazi Germany; he mingled with Chagall and Brecht in Paris; and he debated with Einstein in New York. He was a scholar, a refugee, and an idealist. But above all, he was a photographer. An early innovator of hand-held street photography in 1930s France and 1940s New York, his images are sophisticated, beautiful, and touching; his portraits include some of the most important people of the mid-20th century, like Albert Einstein. Image above: Fred Stein, Americans All, New York 1943 © Fred Stein Archive Fred Stein, Paris Evening, Paris 1934 © Fred Stein Archive [...]

Jul 14, 2022

Sneak Preview of Theatrical Release “Three Minutes – A Lengthening”
Post-Screening Q&A with Director Bianca Stigter
and Author Glenn Kurtz, moderated by Dr. Ori Z Soltes
Quad Cinema, New York

Rachel Stern2022-08-26T05:49:55-04:00July 14th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Sneak Preview of Theatrical Release “Three Minutes – A Lengthening”
Post-Screening Q&A with Director Bianca Stigter
and Author Glenn Kurtz, moderated by Dr. Ori Z Soltes
Quad Cinema, New York

"'Three Minutes' is more than a documentary about the Holocaust — it is an investigative drama, a meditation on the ethics of moving images and a ghost story about people who might be forgotten should we take those images for granted." Beatrice Loayza, The New York Times (Critic's Pick) [FULL ARTICLE HERE] Thank you to everyone who made the sneak screening such a huge success! Catch a screening of the film: NOW SCREENING NATIONWIDE - FIND YOUR CITY HERE Three minutes of footage of a 16mm home movie found in an attic in South Florida, shot by David Kurtz in 1938, are the only moving images remaining of the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk, Poland before [...]

Jun 24, 2022

The Enduring Legacy of
Chaim Gross (1902-1991)
With Daughter Mimi Gross and Sasha Davis

Rachel Stern2022-09-28T14:35:06-04:00June 24th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on The Enduring Legacy of
Chaim Gross (1902-1991)
With Daughter Mimi Gross and Sasha Davis

Chaim Gross (1902-1991) fled Europe as a teenager after experiencing the violence of World War I and the disruption of his artistic training due to anti-Semitic policies. He arrived in New York City in 1921 and quickly found a welcoming environment among fellow artists, many of whom were also immigrants, at the Educational Alliance Art School. Despite difficult beginnings, Gross rose to become one of America’s leading twentieth-century sculptors and a key proponent of the direct carving movement. Although a small number of his works referenced his horrific early experiences and the later murder of family members in the Holocaust, his themes were largely joyful, showing mothers at play or acrobats and dancers. Image above: [...]

Jun 9, 2022

Judith and Gerson Leiber.
A Life of Beauty, Love and Inspiration
Lecture by Ann Fristoe Stewart

Rachel Stern2022-07-06T13:52:02-04:00June 9th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Judith and Gerson Leiber.
A Life of Beauty, Love and Inspiration
Lecture by Ann Fristoe Stewart

“If Romeo and Juliet had lived into their 90s, they would have been Judy and Gerson.” That’s how Jeffrey Sussman described Judith and Gerson Leiber. Join us as Ann Fristoe Stewart gives a unique insight into the astonishing story of famed handbag designer Judith Leiber, a survivor of Hitler’s Europe who came to America and took the fashion accessory industry by storm, and of highly accomplished and creative artist Gerson Leiber, and speaks about the creativity, humanity, the love and the genius of Judith and Gerson Leiber. Image above: Judith and Gerson Leiber © The Leiber Collection Judith Leiber, Peacock-Shaped Minaudiére with Multicolor Crystal Rhinestones and Black Onyx & Sodalite Stone Details, 2004. Photo credit: Gary Mamay © The Leiber [...]

Jun 9, 2022

Nazi Billionaires.
The Dark History of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties
Author David de Jong and Rachel Stern in conversation

Rachel Stern2022-07-20T13:29:12-04:00June 9th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Nazi Billionaires.
The Dark History of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties
Author David de Jong and Rachel Stern in conversation

This event features a conversation between Rachel Stern and David de Jong, author of the landmark work of investigative journalism, which reveals the true story of how Germany’s wealthiest business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the atrocities of the Third Reich – and how America knowingly allowed these horrors to happen. In 1946, Günther Quandt – patriarch of Germany’s most iconic industrial empire, a dynasty that today controls BMW – was arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he had been forced to join the party by his archrival, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have [...]

Jun 7, 2022

Death and Immortality:
The Gentle Power of Hans von Trotha’s “Pollak’s Arm”
Hans von Trotha and Ori Z Soltes in conversation

Rachel Stern2022-08-25T13:01:20-04:00June 7th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Death and Immortality:
The Gentle Power of Hans von Trotha’s “Pollak’s Arm”
Hans von Trotha and Ori Z Soltes in conversation

Ludwig Pollak (Prague 1868-1943 Auschwitz) was an extraordinary connoisseur of antiquities--an Austro-Hungarian Jew whose path into academia was impeded by his religion, but who settled in Rome, where he carved out a unique place for himself as an expert in recognizing, understanding, and organizing great works of art. It was he who shaped and articulated the magnificent collections of JP Morgan. Of perhaps even greater consequence, his astute eye saw a sculpted fragment of an arm in a flea market that, he deduced, was the limb missing from the spectacular Hellenistic-Roman sculptural group known as Laocoon. He gifted that arm fragment to the Vatican so that it might complete the work that occupied an important place within [...]

Jun 1, 2022

Charlotte. Animated Film about
German-Jewish Artist Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943)
Producer Julia Rosenberg
in conversation with Ori Z Soltes

Rachel Stern2022-06-22T15:01:42-04:00June 1st, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Charlotte. Animated Film about
German-Jewish Artist Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943)
Producer Julia Rosenberg
in conversation with Ori Z Soltes

Join us as the film's producer, Julia Rosenberg, speaks with Ori Z Soltes from Georgetown University in Washington DC about her motivation, thoughts and decisions that went into the creation of her newly released animated film "Charlotte." Moderated by Rachel Stern, Executive Director of the Fritz Ascher Society. Image above: Film poster "Charlotte" "Charlotte" is an animated drama that tells the true story of Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943), a young German-Jewish painter who comes of age in Berlin on the eve of the Second World War. Fiercely imaginative and deeply gifted, she dreams of becoming an artist. Her first love applauds her talent, which emboldens her resolve. But [...]

May 19, 2022

Ludwig and Else Meidner.
An Artist Couple Exiled in London
Lecture by Erik Riedel, Frankfurt/Main (Germany)

Rachel Stern2022-08-03T14:52:23-04:00May 19th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Ludwig and Else Meidner.
An Artist Couple Exiled in London
Lecture by Erik Riedel, Frankfurt/Main (Germany)

When Ludwig and Else Meidner met in 1925, he was already an established artist well-known for his so-called Apocalyptic Landscapes. Although Else started as Ludwig’s student, she developed a distinct independent style and he always praised her art as more refined than his own “coarse” works. As Else Meidner slowly gained recognition in Berlin art circles, her career was abruptly cut short by the Nazi-regime in 1933. She moved to Cologne with her husband in 1935; and they emigrated to England in 1939 only a few weeks before the war started. In London both lived largely unnoticed by the English art scene. But while Ludwig frustratedly returned to Germany, she decided to stay in England. Their complicated relationship developed from [...]