What Could Not Be ErasedCSMC research underpins exhibition on Jewish life in Harburg

16 August 2021, by Webmaster

Photo: I. Shevchuk, K. A. Huskin (CSMC)

CSMC researchers were able to reconstruct Nazi slogans on Torah scrolls looted from the Harburg synagogue during the Reichspogromnacht. These fragments are a centrepiece of a current exhibition on Jewish life in Harburg, which is open until 17 October.

The Stadtmuseum Harburg is currently showing the exhibition “Orte des jüdischen Lebens in Harburg” (“Places of Jewish Life in Harburg”). A central focus is on the events of the Reichspogromnacht, when a mob stormed the synagogue in Eißendorfer Straße.

That night, Torah scrolls were looted from the synagogue, burned on the market square, or smeared with Nazi slogans. Decades later, parts of them have now resurfaced. 

A group of CSMC researchers including Sebastian Bosch, Olivier Bonnerot, Kyle Ann Huskin, Ivan Shevchuk, and Michael Kohs have reconstructed some of the inscriptions on these fragments, which some of their owners apparently later tried to erase. Their work provides new insights to a dark chapter in the history of Jewish life in Harburg, which the exhibition will make accessible to visitors until 17 October.

For more information about the background of the exhibiton, read this taz article or listen to this NDR feature.