Rachel Stern2025-02-13T07:00:51-05:00January 26th, 2025|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
This presentation starts with Bukiet reading an excerpt from a novel he is currently working on, followed by an inspiring discussion with Stern about the daily reality and nature of being a writer. They continue with a broader conversation about the arts and their relationship to reality. As they delve into his books, they explore the direct or indirect presence of the Holocaust in his works and the way it still shakes the foundation of our civilization. Melvin Jules Bukiet has published eleven books, including After, Signs and Wonders and Strange Fire. His fiction has appeared in the Paris Review and other magazines, his non-fiction in the American Scholar and other magazines. He [...]
Rachel Stern2025-01-20T11:20:36-05:00January 20th, 2025|Events, Lectures|
Ka.tzetnik, the Holocaust author who sold millions of copies and shaped its memory in Israel, was and remains an enigma. He remained elusive as rumors spread, claiming that he wrote all night long, in complete solitude, wearing his prisoner uniform from Auschwitz and burning his manuscripts by morning. During the explosive Eichmann trial, Ka.tzetnik was forced to reveal his identity to the public as he was summoned to testify. In a short testimony of a few minutes, he coined the term "The Other Planet" in describing Auschwitz, and fainted. The film explores the Ka.tzetnik enigma, shedding light on the person behind the myth, and brings back a chapter in his life that wasn't discussed much—his personal odyssey in coping [...]
Rachel Stern2025-03-02T04:34:45-05:00January 20th, 2025|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
Rachel Stern will present insights into the art and life of the German-Jewish artist Fritz Ascher and the mission of The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art. Introduced by Richard Quinlan, Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education at Saint Elizabeth University in Morristown (NJ). Image above: Fritz Ascher, Male Portrait in Red, c. 1915. Private collection © Bianca Stock Fritz Ascher (1893-1970), a painter, graphic artist, and poet, was recommended to the art academy in Königsberg by the renown German painter Max Liebermann at the age of 16. From 1913 onwards, he gained recognition as a painter in Berlin. Ascher was a keen observer of his era; the [...]
Rachel Stern2025-02-12T14:47:01-05:00January 2nd, 2025|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
Hermann Goering’s art dealer, Bruno Lohse, prospered by selling stolen art for decades after WWII, while Jewish families struggled to regain their paintings and memories. Captured and interrogated by the Monuments Men after the war, he served a brief prison sentence. After his release, he dealt profitably in stolen art for sixty years after the war, selling to collectors, galleries, and major museums. Highlighting stories of Holocaust survivors working to reclaim their families' lost artworks, Plunderer reveals the failures of post-war justice and the continuing complicity of governments and the art trade. Screening followed by Q+A with producer John Friedman. In partnership with The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art. Director: Hugo Macgregor Year: 2024 Runtime: [...]
Rachel Stern2025-01-09T14:06:25-05:00January 2nd, 2025|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, Happy 2025! An eventful month lies ahead. First of all, I am very excited to announce that you now can experience our website in multiple languages - try it out: https://fritzaschersociety.org/. Here at the Fritz Ascher Society, we are starting the year with two virtual talks that are connected to exhibitions - one in London and one here in New York: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8, 12:00PM EST FRED KORMIS (1894-1986)– SCULPTING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY PRESENTATION BY BARBARA WARNOCK, LONDON (ENGLAND) REGISTER HERE Fred Kormis, Two Heads, c. 1930s © Wiener Holocaust Library Collections Sculptor and printmaker Fred Kormis (1894-1986) was born into an Austrian and German-Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany, was wounded fighting [...]
Rachel Stern2025-01-09T13:35:50-05:00December 24th, 2024|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, We wish you Happy Holidays with Mayer Kirshenblatt's painting Hanukkah, in which he remembers celebrating the holiday with his family in Opatów (Apt) in the 1920s. "This is Hanukkah at home with my father, mother, and brothers. We lit the candles and sang Maoz tsur (Rock of Ages). I painted a few notes to indicate that we were singing. It was a special day for us because we were let out of school early. Father gave me Hanukkah gelt, a few pennies for a present, in honor of the holiday. Mother cooked latkes, potato pancakes, which are very delicious. She grated raw potatoes, added eggs, and flour and fried the pancakes in shmalts, [...]
Rachel Stern2025-01-22T13:31:12-05:00December 22nd, 2024|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
Berthe Weill was a trailblazing art dealer who exhibited works by emerging artists in her Parisian gallery from 1901 to 1941. Even though many of them went on to become key avant-garde figures, Weill’s role has been omitted from most historical accounts of 20th-century modernism. In this presentation, Lynn Gumpert, a co-curator of the first exhibition on Weill, provides an overview of this remarkable woman. Image above: Amedeo Modigliani, Fille rousse (Girl with red hair), c. 1915. Oil on canvas, 16 x 14 3/8 in. (40.5 x 36.5 cm). Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris. Jean Walter and Paul Guillame Collection, 1960.46 © Photo: Musée de l’Orangerie / Sophie Crépy Passionate and outspoken, Weill was the [...]
Rachel Stern2024-12-09T17:13:32-05:00December 9th, 2024|Events, Lectures|
Screening followed by Q+A with director Eliran Peled, writer Daphne Merkin, and author Benjamin Balint. Film and screening offered in partnership with the New York Jewish Week. Co-sponsored by Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art. Upon his death in 1924, the great Czech-Austrian novelist Franz Kafka left behind a rich collection of unpublished manuscripts, with instructions to his friend Max Brod to burn them all. Thanks to Brod’s failure to fulfill Kafka’s wishes, the world has come to know one of the great writers of the 20th century. Now, 100 years after his death, the film “Kafka’s Last Trial” tells the story of this altruistic betrayal and the multi-generational effort to preserve Kafka’s literary legacy. Based on [...]
Rachel Stern2024-12-18T05:55:27-05:00December 4th, 2024|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
Jutta Götzmann, exhibition curator of "Love and Betrayal," presents the artist Fritz Ascher (1893-1970) during a tour. In addition to early charcoal, graphite and ink drawings, colorful gouaches are fascinating. Poems that are considered his "unpainted pictures" and were created in secret during the National Socialist era complement the exhibition. BUY TICKETS HERE The Fritz Ascher Society is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization. Your donation is fully tax deductible. YOUR SUPPORT MAKES OUR WORK POSSIBLE. THANK YOU. DONATE HERE
Rachel Stern2024-12-12T19:30:39-05:00November 26th, 2024|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, What a whirlwind of a month this was, with the opening of the important new Fritz Ascher exhibition, "Love and Betrayal - The Expressionist Fritz Ascher from New York Private Collections" at the House of the Graphic Collection, Augustinermuseum in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany). This is the first exhibition that focusses on works on paper created by Fritz Ascher before 1933. In this most immediate and intimate medium, we discover the cheerful and thoughtful artist who was part of the avant-garde in what was then the most exciting cultural city in the world and who spontaneously recorded his thoughts, ideas and experiences on paper, or worked on pictorial themes or compositions. The exhibition is on view [...]
Rachel Stern2024-12-18T14:18:11-05:00November 24th, 2024|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
In this book talk, Michael Lambek follows the intertwined history of Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Villa Tugendhat and the family who inhabited it from 1930-1938. Part memoir, part social history, the book traces the family from its origins in a Jewish ghetto to the present day, focussing on the author’s maternal grandmother, Grete Tugendhat who commissioned and championed the house, which is now a World Heritage Site in Brno, Czechia. Image above: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Villa Tugendhat, Brno (Czechia), photo David Zidlicky The Villa Tugendhat, designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1929, is an icon of architectural modernism in Brno, Czechia. It was also a family home. [...]
Rachel Stern2025-01-09T14:27:52-05:00November 21st, 2024|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
Born in 1894 in Frankfurt into an Austrian and German Jewish family, Fred Kormis’ life and career were shaped and disrupted by some of the most significant events of the twentieth century. Kormis saw action and was wounded in the First World War as part of the Austrian army, before being held for four years as a prisoner of war in Siberia. Image above: Fred Kormis, Two Heads, c. 1930s © Wiener Holocaust Library Collections He worked as an artist during the politically and culturally tumultuous Weimar period, and during the Nazi era revealed himself to be Jewish, a decision that led to the removal of his art from galleries. Kormis and his wife Rachel Sender [...]
