Final Sale. The End of Jewish Owned Businesses in Nazi Berlin
By 1933 at the latest, Jewish businesses were under direct threat of Nazi persecution. Their access to goods and services was systematically obstructed, and interest groups and the Chamber of Industry and Commerce were purged and politically brought into line. Violent rioting attended the boycott of 1 April 1933 and flared up again in many places in subsequent years, culminating in the destruction of thousands of Jewish businesses in the night of 9-10 November 1938. After this pogrom, Jews were legally prohibited from running retail or craft businesses and from offering any services or goods for sale. By 1945, all Jewish businesses in Berlin had been liquidated or transferred to non-Jews.
By the example of sixteen, all but forgotten Berlin businesses, this exhibition not only shows the stages and processes by which Jewish business people had their rights withdrawn and livelihoods destroyed but also the counter-strategies they developed in response.
Duration:
24 October – 13 December 2008 at the foyer of the main building of Humboldt University Berlin
On tour from 2009, showing at: Landesarchiv Berlin; Faculty of Economic Science, Humboldt University Berlin, foyer; Schwarz’sche Villa, Kulturamt Steglitz-Zehlendorf; the Sebastian Haffner arts and education centre, Museum Pankow; the Chamber of Industry and Commerce Berlin; and from 2010 in English at the Leo Baeck Institute New York; the Hebrew University Jerusalem; Boston and Stockton Universities, NJ
