Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Ofer Ashkenazi, et al., "Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany"
Date: September 18, 2025
Host: Amir Engel
Guests: Ofer Ashkenazi, Rebecca Grossman, Shira Melon, Sarah Wobig Segev

Episode Overview

This episode explores the groundbreaking new book, Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany, authored by Ofer Ashkenazi, Rebecca Grossman, Shira Melon, and Sarah Wobig Segev. The discussion examines Jewish photography in Nazi Germany as a vital, yet underexplored, primary source for understanding Jewish experience during the period. The authors reflect on their collaborative approach, the challenges and rewards of their research, historiographical interventions, and the unique insights that emerge from Jewish photographers’ perspectives—covering the significance of home, public and Nazified spaces, and photographic narrative.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Genesis and Collaboration Behind the Book

• The project started with a recognition of the abundance and historical importance of Jewish photographs from the Nazi era, but soon became too large for a single scholar (05:33).
• The team brought together diverse expertise: social and intellectual German Jewish history (Sarah), migration and professional photographers (Rebecca), and German literature (Shira).
• Their process was highly collaborative, not the typical "divided chapters" approach. All authors actively wrote, critiqued, and revised every chapter together.
• Quote (Ofer Ashkenazi, 07:07):

  "The work was basically trying ideas on one another, trying to see if it's convincing and if it was, we would write it...eventually...the product was much stronger than I could have imagined when we started."

• They reviewed and debated a massive database of 15,000 photographs, identifying recurring motifs and discarding even rich material for the sake of focus.

2. Methodologies and Lessons in Collaborative Writing

• The authors emphasized the importance of direct, clear, and polite communication when collaboratively writing (10:41).
• Quote (Sarah Wobig Segev, 10:41):

  "You really have to be so clear when you're communicating with somebody else. If something isn't clear ... you really have to explain why... it requires extremely direct, open, polite conversation and communication about it."

• Building a "visual memory" together, they each contributed unique archival finds from Germany, Israel, and elsewhere, testing whether observed patterns were representative or exceptional (11:19).

3. Historiography of Jewish Photography in Germany

• Photography in late-19th and early-20th century Germany was democratized by technological advances (e.g., the Leica camera from 1925) (19:27).
• Photography became widely accessible, including to Jews and women, due to its classification as a craft, not fine art (14:38).
• Nazi Germany politicized photography—both Nazis and German Jews saw taking photos as an act of self-representation and resistance (21:28).
• Quote (Ofa Ashkenazi, 21:28):

  "By the early 1930s...Nazis themselves, Goebbels himself would say it again and again. We need to have our own army of amateur photographers... In German Jewish magazines there is the answer. We should take it upon ourselves, we Jews take it upon ourselves to start taking photos that will show the Nazis what Germany really is and...what we are."

4. Encoding Photography: The Home and Nazified Landscapes

• Home as a Refuge and Site of Loss (24:52)

  • Photographs of home reflected comfort, togetherness, and later, dissolution and impending emigration.
  • Example: The Salda family’s images depict joyful gatherings, then decline and final moments before their forced separation.
  • Quote (Sarah Wobig Segev, 24:52):

    "But it also becomes a point of refuge...as the outer public realm...becomes increasingly hostile, the family home became a place of refuge."

  • Homes also documented confident displays of Jewish identity—portraits of rabbis, ritual items—but often this was "closeted," visible only inside (27:27).

• Nazified Landscapes and Public Space (29:05)

  • Photographs engaged with conventional German nationalist imagery, subverted by centering Jewish subjects in these landscapes, asserting belonging.
  • Example: The Rosenthal family album mimics postcards symbolizing German Heimat, but reclaims the landscape with Jews at the center (29:05).
  • Caution was exercised in public photography—adults were wary, but teenagers often brazenly documented Nazi parades and marches (31:45).

5. Photographic Narratives: Albums, Double Stories, and Material Memory

• The team devised ways to read photographs as dynamic narratives, not just isolated images (39:27).
• Albums present multi-layered stories—sometimes contradictory ("double narratives"), shifting over generations or as albums are reframed and donated.
• Example A: Freund/Porat family album (40:47)
  • Official family memoir: "We were German, then became Zionists and left for Palestine."
  • But the album: Suggests ongoing ambiguity about home and identity; migration is depicted as just another trip.
• Example B: Mariana Holland school album (44:17)
  • Childhood captions vs. headmaster’s adult commentary, revealing tensions in perspective, experience, and memory.
• Institutional donations and later curation shape and even retroactively create new narratives around Jewish life and loss (46:42).

6. Iconic and Personally Meaningful Photographs

Each guest selected a photograph or collection especially meaningful to them, highlighting the range and emotional gravity of their research:

• Ofer Ashkenazi: Cover photo—Jewish youths, seemingly carefree on a prohibited "Judenfrei" beach (Norderney, 1935), carefully choreographed, suitcases hint at impending exile (51:00).
  • Quote:

    "It's both a photograph of being confident and carefree in Germany and a photograph of we have to leave soon."

• Sarah Wobig Segev: Lena Lobo’s 80th birthday photo, August 1941—defiant normalcy before her murder; sent to her grandson as a last image, symbolizing both resilience and irreparable loss (53:55).
• Shira Melon: Album of empty rooms—parents leaving their ancestral Hamburg home in 1938, sending the album to their daughter abroad as a means of closure before their own suicides (55:14).
  • Quote:

    "We are taking responsibility of the moment, where we are closing the door behind us and we want to remember this house in this way and not...in the context of its confiscation..."

• Rebecca Grossman: Abraham Zif’s Bonn album—documents public life, Nazi marches, shifting from outdoor scenes to covert images as persecution intensified; documents the thinning of his own family (58:16).

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On collaborative scholarship:
  "Every page has all of our voices on it...All of the chapters were written by at least two of us, and then the other two joining in..." (Sarah Wobig Segev, 08:03)

• On the power and danger of photography:
  "How do you document uncertainty? How do you make sense of your life in times of uncertainty?" (Ofer Ashkenazi, 29:05)

• On photographic narrative and layers of meaning:
  "The album that we had the close reading of actually tells two different stories...the album also tells a different story..." (Ofa Ashkenazi, 40:47)

• On the enduring significance of images:
  "Photos are not just images, they are material objects and they are shared." (Sarah Wobig Segev, 53:57)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Topic/Quote | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------| | 05:33 | Assembling the collaborative team and process | | 10:41 | Lessons in collaborative writing – communication | | 14:38 | History of photography, its accessibility for Jews in Germany | | 19:27 | Rise of handheld cameras, democratization of photography | | 21:28 | Politicization of photography in Nazi and Jewish contexts | | 24:52 | The significance of "home" and family photos | | 29:05 | Photographs in public/Nazified spaces, symbolic visual claims | | 31:45 | Differences between adult and youth photographers | | 39:27 | What are "photographic narratives"? | | 40:47 | Example: Freund/Porat family album—contradictory narratives | | 44:17 | Example: School album with double-captioning, differing viewpoints | | 46:42 | The afterlife of photos—donations, institutional framing | | 51:00 | Most meaningful photos to each author; book cover photo | | 53:55 | Lena Lobo's birthday photo—defiant normalcy and memory | | 55:14 | Album of empty Hamburg rooms—farewell, migration, and loss | | 58:16 | Abraham Zif’s Bonn album—shifting urban Jewish experience |

Summary: Why This Episode Matters

This episode provides an exceptional insight into how Jewish photography in Nazi Germany—largely personal, sometimes clandestine—can be used as a profound historical source. The guests articulate not only the importance of such visual documents for challenging dominant narratives, but also the complexities of constructing, reading, and preserving them over generations. Their collaborative and innovative approach reveals not only hidden histories, but also the deeply personal human stories behind each photograph.

For those interested in history, memory, photography, or the Holocaust, this conversation is essential listening, offering new tools and perspectives on both method and meaning.