Meeting projects "Goodbye in Chemnitz"

From Tuesday to Saturday, 28 May to 1 June, several Jewish families will visit Chemnitz to search for the roots of their family histories and exchange ideas. At the invitation of the Buntmacher*innen association and the city of Chemnitz, a multi-day programme of events with music, readings and films has been created, to which the public is also cordially invited.

On Friday, 31 May, Lord Mayor Sven Schulze will receive six families and supporters of the meeting at Chemnitz City Hall. Among those expected to attend are Oron Adar, Ron Frank, Nirit Sommerfeld, Caroline Gutman, Irene Selver and Julia Davis Nosko. The families will sign the city's Golden Book in the town hall's lobby at 4 pm. Media representatives are invited to attend.

The "Days of Jewish Culture" have been an important occasion and place of reunion since the mid-1990s. Even today, members of former Jewish families from Chemnitz still visit the city from time to time and are warmly welcomed. This usually happens on the occasion of the annual laying of stumbling blocks.

It is important to Lord Mayor Sven Schulze to continue this tradition and to enter into dialogue with the next generation: "When the children of people who were once expelled from Chemnitz come back, they are very interested in how their parents or grandparents lived here. They want to know whether stories about the city can be reconciled with what the city is like today. And these encounters are also very valuable for us, because even if the families live somewhere else today, we find a lot to connect them. A good dialogue can develop and we also learn something about our own city history. This year's programme shows how exciting these reunions can be."

This year's encounter project was initiated by the Buntmacher*innen association: "We hope that the meeting will act as an impulse and lead to a growing and continuous exchange between the people of Chemnitz and representatives of the second and third generation of Jewish families who were once expelled from here."

The following events will take place over the five days:

On Tuesday, 28 May, the day of arrival, there will be a pre-opening of the meeting at 8 pm in the Clubkino Siegmar. Israeli filmmaker Oron Adar will present his latest project "The corridors of power" in a German preview (the film will be officially released on 30 May). Oron Adar is responsible for both the script and the editing of the documentary film. The Oscar-nominated director of the film, Dror Moreh, will also be present

On Wednesday, 29 May, the families will be present at the laying of the Stumbling Stones, which will begin at 9 am on Theaterplatz. At 11.20 a.m., a Stumbling Stone will be laid for a member of the Goeritz family. Since 2012, three Stolpersteine in front of the house at Hoffmannstraße 52 have commemorated the fate of the Jewish Goeritz family. The factory owner Karl Goeritz and his two children tragically lost their lives in November on board the MV Simon Bolivar in a German minefield off the coast of England. His wife Irmgard, known as Irmi, survived the accident. Until her death in 2004, Irmi always carried a photo of her first, lost family with her. Now Irmi Selver (Goeritz) is returning to her old home and to the memory of the town with a permanent stumbling block. Irmi's daughter Irene Selver and her two granddaughters, Anna and Eve Selver-Kassel, are present at the laying of the stone.

On this day, the Frank, Selver, Leder and Nosko (Noskowitz) families in particular will also take their first walk together across Chemnitz's Kaßberg and Kapellenberg in the footsteps of the family stories and visit the Jewish cemetery.

In the evening, at 8.30 pm, the documentary film "Irmi" (directed by Veronica Selver) will be presented in a special event and in the presence of Irmi's daughter Irene Beatrice Selver at Clubkino Siegmar.

The exhibition "Lee Leder Guttman: From Chemnitz to the World" will be officially opened on Thursday 30 May at 7 pm at Galerie Weise. The show is the first in Chemnitz to present works by Lee Leder, who was born here in 1925 and worked as a cartoonist and animation designer for Disney and Warner Bros after fleeing to America. Lee Leder's daughter Caroline Guttman has also been invited to attend. At the exhibition opening, Stella Leder, a descendant of the Leder/Hermlin family (granddaughter of Stephan Hermlin), will read from her book "Meine Mutter, der Mann im Garten und die Rechten". This event is part of the Days of Jewish Culture in Chemnitz.

On Friday, 31 May at 7.30 p.m. , a further highlight is planned in the concert hall of the Municipal Music School, which will also explore the biographies of those invited. They will provide insights into the family archive and talk about the lives of their parents and grandparents. Among others, Nirit Sommerfeld and Julia Davis Nosko will read from as yet unpublished autofictional texts, a conversation with Oron Adar will focus on the family history of the Adars and Federmanns and Ron Frank will present sequences of old Super16 films showing Jewish families from Chemnitz travelling through Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. The recordings will be accompanied by a piano improvisation by pianist Jeffrey Goldberg.

On Saturday, 1 June at 10.30 a.m., there will be a matinee event at the Museum of Industry at which Ron Frank will present his documentary film "The Eternal Road" for the first time in Chemnitz. In the film, Ron Frank tells of the creation and world and German premieres (1937 New York/1999 Chemnitz) of Kurt Weill's opera "Der Weg der Verheißung" and connects these strands with his own family history. Footage of the (re)encounters of Jewish people in Chemnitz in the 1990s make this film a unique and extremely important contemporary document for Chemnitz. A discussion with Ron Frank rounds off the programme and concludes the opening event.

Admission to the events is free. Reservations (except for Thursday 30 May) can be made by e-mail to: info(at)buntmacherinnen.eu

The meeting is a cooperation between Buntmacher*innen, Weiterdenken and the City of Chemnitz. Funded by the Local Action Plan for Democracy, Tolerance and a Cosmopolitan Chemnitz, as part of the federal programme "Live Democracy!", by the State Prevention Council of the Free State of Saxony, the Carl and Marisa Hahn Foundation and Community4You AG. Other partners are supporting the meeting.