Lothar Prager was born in Prenzlauer Berg in 1938. His parents Georg and Margarete (née Romm) grew up on the streets around the water tower – she on Weißenburger Straße (today Kollwitzstraße) and he on Straßburger Straße. Georg was a trained letterpress printer and opened a print store in his father’s stationery store. Margarete and her mother-in-law both worked in the store. This local family story could have continued this way. Lothar, however, did not grow up in Prenzlauer Berg and never met his grandparents. In January 1939, he leaves the city with his parents and survives the Holocaust far away from Berlin, in the Chinese port city of Shanghai.
The exhibition tells the story of a single family and thus simultaneously represents the fate of many unknown people: The making of a well-situated existence, the rooting in Prenzlauer Berg, the forced exile, the murder of relatives, the survival of the refugees, and the return to Berlin. The present of our district is also marked by the memory, the suffering of loss, and the return of many former residents and subsequent generations.
