Ausstellung

Von der Grenzstadt in die Welt
100 Jahre jüdisches Leben in Memel/Klaipeda

Stationen:
25.09.05 - 20.12.05 in Klaipeda/Memel
14.01.06 - 27.02.06 in Silute/Heydekrug
23.03.06 - 01.07.06 in Vilnius
16.01.07 - 13.02.07 in  Kaunas (Bezirksbibliothek)

Sent: Thursday, 1. February 2007 07:14
to: Dr. Ruth Leiserowitz
Suject: Ashfield calling

Dear Dr. Ruth,  I thank you so much for your letter keeping me in touch of the work you are doing and where the exhibition re the Jewish community of East Prussia for which I sent you some of our family's photos.  I wonder if you would be so kind as to let me know when and where the exhibition will be held when it gets to Israel as I have cousins there who would be most interested to see it.
I also wonder if you will ever come as far as Australia?
As always, I wish you much success with these exhibitions .. you have put so much work into them, you deserve no less.  With kindest regards, Hanna 

Exhibition

From the border town out into the world
100 years of Jewish life in Memel / Klaipeda

In the most northerly Prussian port town a highly varied Jewish life developed in the middle of the 19th century, inspired by immigrants from the East and the West. The changing political allegiances of the town and region after 1919 made it easy for the township to blossom rapidly, growing from approx. 2000 inhabitants to almost 7000 inhabitants in the interwar period. Moreover, in the 30s Klaipeda became an important centre of Zionist emigration. The anti-Semitic politics in Germany which began after 1933 had rapid effects on the situation in the Memel territory. When Hitler occupied the region in March 1939 by issuing an ultimatum, the Jewish community was suddenly exterminated. The Jews of the region, who primarily fled to Lithuania, fell foul of the fiendish interplay of the National Socialist and the Stalinist dictatorship, which only a few of them survived.

Flyer for download pdf file
Text of exhibition as pdf file
Poster as pdf file

Organizing body:

• Jews in East Prussia. Association for Culture and History
• Institute for Archaeology and History of the Baltic Region (University of Klaipeda)
• Klaipeda Jewish Community
• Pranas-Domsaitis Gallery

Curator: Dr. Ruth Leiserowitz, ruth@leiserowitz.de
(postal address: Friedrichstraße 95, 10117 Berlin, Germany)