In the early 1930s, there were already brave young women in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district standing up to Nazism. One of them was Eva Mamlok, a Jewish teenager who performed everyday acts of resistance against the Nazi regime – first alone, and then alongside other young women. They formed networks, distributed leaflets, wrote slogans on walls, and organized an underground library.

As Jews, they were persecuted and enslaved. For their antifascist activism, they were arrested and deported. Yet even in the most terrible circumstances, they never stopped resisting.

Until now their story has barely been told, partly because very few sources and documents exist – besides the testimonies from Inge Gerson-Berner, the only member of the group who survived the Holocaust. This exhibition will present an extensive, never-before-seen body of scholarship compiled by a network of citizen researchers. It brings together historical documents, photographs, and eyewitness accounts that invite visitors to revisit the past while exposing the gaps and holes in the record. It carves out space for questions and debate and seeks to raise awareness of the crucial role women played in the resistance against Nazi tyranny.

An exhibition by Alexandra Weltz-Rombach in cooperation with the FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum.

Research: Jutta Faehndrich, Miriam Visaczki, Miklas Weber, Alexandra Weltz-Rombach, Anna Hájková, Jasmin Lörchner

Exhibition concept: Alexandra Weltz-Rombach, Natalie Bayer 

Curatorial assistance: Cecilia Bösche, Luise Fakler 

Exhibition design: Matthies Weber & Schnegg 

Graphic design: Christine Gundelach/Editienne
 
The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of events:
15.6., 3 pm Curator's tour of the exhibition
22.6., 3 pm Guided tour in Kreuzberg in search of traces of Jewish life and the Mamlok family
29.6., 5:30 pm Long Book Night in Oranienstraße
18.8., 3 pm Curator's tour
7.9. 3 pm Guided tour for people with visual impairments
8.9. 3 pm Guided tour in English
19.9. 6 pm Closing event in the museum
21.9. 3 pm Curator's tour

Made possible by support from:

Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion

Projektfonds Kulturförderung Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (Cultural Subsidies Project Fund of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg)

Verein für die Geschichte Friedrichshain-Kreuzbergs e.V. (Association for the History of Friedrichshain-Krezuberg) 

The African-American lesbian poet and activist Audre Geraldine Lorde (1934-1992) had a significant influence on the Black women's movement worldwide with her work against homophobia, sexism and racism. Audre Lorde often spent time in West Berlin between 1984 and 1992. Here she gave readings and lectures, called for a fight against racism and encouraged Black women to make their own history visible.

To mark the renaming of a street after Audre Lorde, the FHXB Museum is showing the photo exhibition "Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years". This exhibition was originally shown in 2014-2015 at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, where Audre Lorde held a visiting professorship in 1984. The portraits by Dagmar Schultz show Audre Lorde in various places in and outside Berlin, both in private moments and in her socio-political commitment.

Intervention in the permanent exhibition "ortsgespräche - ferngespräche - ortsgeschichten"

Duration: Extended until  08.09.2024

Re/Assembling Anti-Racist Struggles
An Open Archive

From May 22nd, 2022
Opening: May 21st, 5 pm

Anti-racist struggles and acts of resistance constitute part of the history of this country. Whether they have immigrated, were born here, or are simply passing through, people who have endured first-hand experiences of racism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of discrimination have been fighting for equality and social change for decades.

Their demands for social inclusion have played a significant role in shaping society, as have countless projects to combat racism and oppression. However, their individual stories and perspectives remain for the most part unseen and unheard. Their knowledge, experiences and voices are often co-opted or are omitted from the mainstream culture of remembrance and official archives.

For some time now, we have been working together with a range of people from East, West and reunified Germany to develop formats in which they can tell their stories of their own struggles against racism and anti-Semitism. We are working together to find and establish new ways of collecting, processing, and presenting this material.

An open archive has been established at the FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum showcasing the initial outcomes of this collaborative research. The archive comprises a collection of fragments and found objects which will be further expanded upon through workshops and with the support of visitors to the museum. This open archive is intended to become a site for debate—one that unites past experiences with contemporary debates and struggles against anti-Semitism, racism, and all other forms of discrimination.

This project is a cooperation of Georg-August-University Göttingen, Fachhochschule Kiel, Documentation Centre and Museum of  Migration in Germany e.V. (DOMiD) an FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum.

Funded by Federal Agency for Civic Education/bpb.