![[Hi]stories of the German-Jewish Diaspora](/img/mockup/logo.en.png){kind=logo}
With the Diaspora Portal, we aim to provide a user-friendly online resource with comprehensive search capabilities. Content on German-Jewish history outside the German-speaking world will be presented through various text levels, source types, and video content. The different forms of presentation allow for different degrees of specialization. The entire portal has a modular structure, so that visitors can click and "read" their way from the introduction to the overall topic through the different countries.
Our portal is constantly being expanded and will start with a limited preview. So far, more than 30 overview texts on individual countries have been acquired, including places largely unknown to German-Jewish history such as Curaçao, Sri Lanka and Suriname. These places were often integrated into colonial structures and at the same time provide an insight into how colonial structures were perceived by Jews in the context of their own experiences of discrimination and persecution. The case studies - sources as well as biographical portraits - are to be understood here as key documents with which we shine a thematic spotlight on central aspects of the German(-speaking) Jewish diaspora. In the background, additional texts on historical figures and sources are in preparation and will be added on an ongoing basis.
The online source portal is aimed primarily at university students, teachers and scholars in the field of Jewish history, but also at high school students and interested members of the general public, and, last but not least, the descendants of the German-speaking Jews who are the focus of attention here. In keeping with the theme of a German-Jewish diaspora and its transnational networks, it is currently bilingual - in German and English. In order to reach as many visitors as possible, the portal will also be available in Hebrew and Spanish in the future. Especially the descendants - many of them from South America - often do not have access to the German language, but have grown up with the stories of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. With this portal we would like to give them access to the history of their ancestors. As experts on their own family history, they can also have their say through the Bring Your Own Story section.
In this way, we expand our user group beyond the regional and national target audience and make the best possible use of the transnational possibilities of online offerings.
With the Diaspora Portal, we are addressing a broader public beyond the academic specialist audience. In addition to an encyclopedic density of figures and details, complex interrelationships and backgrounds are conveyed in a comprehensible manner, overarching questions and central aspects are reflected upon, and factual information is combined with analytical interpretations.
The Diaspora Portal is particularly suitable for teaching in schools. On the one hand, the complex historical, social and political reasons that led to the emergence of a German(-speaking) Jewish diaspora can be discovered by students on the basis of individual fates. At the same time, a historical understanding of the existential difficulties and challenges of losing one's homeland and starting anew is made possible.
The diaspora portal is made up of a total of three levels of text and a special section, which are linked to each other by cross-references in the form of links.
The first genre is the so-called Geographical Overview. These articles form the longest contributions and are intended to provide the necessary historical context in order to better situate the case studies.
Biographies of German-speaking Jews in emigration represent a second level. The third level consists of Sources that can be regarded as key documents for a history of the German-Jewish diaspora and are presented together with accompanying interpretations.
In a special section – Bring Your Own Story – singular objects can be connected with a personal story.
The geographical overview articles on various transit and destination countries of German-speaking Jews serve as introductions and are intended to identify research questions. As in a handbook, lines of development and core aspects are presented. Factual information is combined with an analytical interpretation of the German-Jewish diaspora that may have developed in each country. The country studies are structured as consistently as possible according to different thematic areas and identify the relevant national circumstances for Jewish history before and after 1933.
The scope of the geographical overviews varies from country to country, presenting different variants of diasporic lifeworlds - from centres of a German-speaking diaspora to transit countries with only a temporary German-speaking Jewish presence. The geographical overviews are based on thematic focus categories. Therefore, they deal with several recurring themes in order to create a coherent text structure and to allow for comparisons between the individual countries. The extremely diverse German-Jewish diaspora is to be presented not only on a national level, but also in individual cities or neighbourhoods as well as in the periphery. In this way, the history of the experiences of German-speaking Jews can be revealed on a local level.
Possible topics along which the geographical overviews can be read are:
1. Everyday Life | 2. Institutions | 3. Identity and Religiosity | 4. Gender and Generation | 5. Transnational Networks | 6. Language | 7. Encounters | 8. Cultural and Knowledge Transfer | 9. Return | 10. Heritage and Remembrance.
With their specific subcategories, the ten thematic categories do not serve as a strict guideline for each geographical overview. Instead, the authors responsible have individually identified the topics relevant to each country and discussed them in their overview texts.
However, what was dealt with as recurrently as possible in all country studies was the respective institutionalization of the German-Jewish diaspora, for example through corresponding associations or magazines, the challenges to be overcome in everyday life and the encounters with other minority groups and the majority society. In addition, the importance of memory and nostalgia for the construction of a common 'diaspora identity' as well as the transnational networks that extend beyond the respective country, including links back to the former homeland. Parallels and differences can be identified in the geographical longitudinal section through these relevant topics.
In addition to the various destinations, historical actors who left the German-speaking world are portrayed. Individual or group biographies are intended to give the German-Jewish diaspora a face, so to speak, and to counteract the depersonalization associated with the subject of migration. It is not important whether the person is known. In addition to 'prominent' historical figures, we also take a look at previously unknown biographies if they shed light on particular aspects of the German-speaking Jewish diaspora in all its diversity.
The biographies delve deeper into the overall context of the respective geographical overview articles using individual examples. The focus is on life in the diaspora. There are also many references to a hoped-for, temporary or actual return to the country of origin. It is precisely through such case studies that it becomes clear how the hybrid, often fragmented belongings of those affected emerged and also changed over the course of their lives. In the short biographies, the thematic focal points of the geographical overview articles recur and can be illuminated by way of example.
Sources that we incorporate into the Diaspora Portal as text, image, sound or audiovisual documents - including images of three-dimensional objects - are used to conduct in-depth explorations. They shed light on individual periods of life and subject areas. Each source (or a coherent set of sources) is described and interpreted in order to place it in its context of origin and use. In addition to a transcription and translation, the source interpretation includes a digital facsimile. As in the biographies, the sources and interpretation texts are also intended to deepen the thematic categories of the geographical overviews using specific examples.
The origin of the sources varies: they come from public archives, libraries or museums as well as from private collections and estates. In some cases, we only show excerpts from a source - but then always with a reference to the accessibility of the entire document and (where technically possible) with a corresponding link to a complete version.
In selecting the sources, we were guided by the idea of so-called key documents, as developed by Miriam Rürup together with Anna Menny and Daniel Burckhardt in the context of the Key Documents of German-Jewish History.
The term key documents describes selected sources which are used as examples to provide insight into historical contexts and events. - as a kind of 'door opener'. This source-based text level forms a central element of the website.
In addition to conventional texts, we want to gradually give people who are themselves part of this history a voice. The section 'Bring Your Own Story' section aims to make their lives in the diaspora tangible by means of individual storytelling objects. They include everyday objects, letters, photos or maps, but also applied art or special textile objects. The various objects combine personal experiences with the history of the German-Jewish diaspora. As unique carriers of memory, which often reflect multiple migration experiences within a family, they have deep, cross-generational meanings. In 10 to 15-minute personal videos, our interviewees reflect on their own migration biography and the role of the German-Jewish diaspora in their family history.