An aerial photograph of Berlin in 1925 highlighting Jewish-owned properties.
The Leo Baeck Institute plans to mount an exhibit entitled Stolen Heart based on the exhibition Stolen Mitte: The “Aryanization” of Jewish Property in Berlin’s Historic City Center, 1933 – 1945 which was originally installed at the Stadtmuseum in Berlin in September 2013. The new exhibition will be installed in early 2016 in the Katherine and Cliff ord Goldsmith Gallery at the Center for Jewish History and remain open through the spring of that year.
Stolen Heart illustrates the “Aryanization,” or the forced transfer of Jewish property into non-Jewish hands, which has yet to be properly recognized and fully documented. Berlin’s central district “Mitte” serves as an example of how the Nazis appropriated Jewish property throughout Germany and Germanoccupied areas during World War II.
Thanks to a generous grant from the Sidney E. Frank Foundation, LBI’s project team will be able to translate the German exhibition for an American audience and mount it in New York. The stories of fi ve specifi c families will illustrate how stores and factories were forcibly taken from the Jews and used by the Nazis for other purposes, including the production of the yellow stars that Jews were required to wear and as storage for “degenerate art.”
LBI will also add a significant and exciting new element to the exhibition. A three-dimensional projection of a map of Berlin will show the city’s development during the Weimar Republic, the pre- and post-World War II periods, the period of division by the Berlin Wall, and today. Over 200 originally Jewish-owned properties will remain highlighted to show the role they played in the city’s development after they were stolen.