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The City Without Jews

Stadt ohne Juden (c) Centrum Judaicum – Ehepaar steht mit Koffern vor der Neuen Synagoge Berlin

Stadt ohne Juden (c) Centrum Judaicum – Ehepaar steht mit Koffern vor der Neuen Synagoge Berlin

© (c) Centrum Judaicum

We are presenting the film “The City Without Jews” from August 4th to September 22nd, 2024.

This silent film from 1924 takes place in a fictional republic that expels all its Jewish citizens. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Hugo Bettauer, which bears the subtitle “A Novel from the Day After Tomorrow.” Unlike the film, the book is actually set in Vienna in the 1920s. However, Vienna is just one example; the novel could also have been set in Berlin. In fact, for decades, it was part of the standard repertoire of anti-Semitic parties in Germany and Austria to call for the expulsion of Jews, especially those who had immigrated from Eastern Europe. This intensified in the highly polarized political climate after the end of the First World War. In 1920, internment camps for “undesirable foreigners” were set up for Jews from Eastern Europe in Prussia and Bavaria, and many were expelled from Bavaria. The Berlin chief of police spoke of a “plague of Eastern Jews,” and in November 1923, a pogrom took place in the Scheunenviertel directly west of Alexanderplatz, not far from the New Synagogue in Berlin.

Years later, both the novel and the film sequences of the expulsion were seen as almost prophetic for the first years of the Nazi regime. The exclusion and then expulsion of the Jews were followed by policies that aimed to physically destroy them.

How relevant is this film after 100 years? We are experiencing extreme political polarization, an underlying mood of dissatisfaction among large sections of the population, and skepticism toward the idea of democracy. We are witnessing the rise of right-wing extremist forces and parties that deliberately focus on exclusion and devaluation and invoke a homogeneous “racial community.” We are experiencing very real fantasies of expulsion that target the “other” and supposed foreignness. The movie—in contrast to the book—has a happy ending. History never repeats itself exactly, but which path will we, will our society, take from here?

We offer visitors the opportunity to see the whole film on the big screen and to perhaps engage in dialogue with one another in our exhibition on the following dates.

Meeting point: Women's gallery in the New Synagogue Berlin

Price info: The entrance fees for the museum apply.

Price: €7.00

Reduced price: €4.50

Next date:

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