Cyra Sommer

(University of Haifa, Department of Jewish History/Haifa Center for German and European Studies: Miriam Rürup, Primary Supervisor)
 

Dissertation Project:

After the Catastrophe: Yekkes in Israel and Their Relationships with Germany, 1945—1995 

This research project examines the attitudes and relations of former German Jews living in Israel—known as Yekkes—to Germany after the Shoah, and their relationships with post-Nazi German society. It examines these relationships over five decades, from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the 1990s, which marks the end of an era in which most Yekkes of the first generation were active. At the heart of this study lies the question of how former German Jews in Israel negotiated their personal and family histories in their relationship with Germany. It builds on the assumption that the remembrance of their individual family history and/or broader German-Jewish history played a decisive role in this relationship. Conversely, the study will examine how the establishment of a new relationship with Germans affected the processing of their experiences in Germany prior to emigration. Rather than centering on well-known personalities and intellectuals, as has often been the case, this study puts the so-called ‘ordinary people’ as the main actors in focus, considering also those who refused any contact to Germany or Germans.