Readings

Reading: Benet Lehmann "Esther's traces"

Monday, 19/05/2025 / 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM / Alte Synagoge Hagenow

The story of Shoah survivor Esther Bejerano and the fight against right-wing extremism

The contemporary witness, musician and anti-fascist Esther Bejarano (1924-2021) was deported to Auschwitz at the age of 18. She was forced to play the accordion in the infamous "Auschwitz Girls' Orchestra", was later sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp and escaped during a death march at the end of the war. Until the end of her life, she fought against the German oblivion of history. Benet Lehmann had many conversations with her. As a member of the last generation still able to speak directly with contemporary witnesses, Benet Lehmann retraces her life with the help of current research and in the light of social developments. What role does the legacy of eyewitness testimony still play today? What does it mean to relate cultures of remembrance to each other in a post-migrant society? Who remembers whom and why? And above all: does a culture of remembrance help to combat anti-Semitism and racism?

Benet Lehmann, born in 1997, studied history, English and art history in Hamburg, Berlin and Jerusalem and is currently working on a doctorate on photographs from the Second World War and their significance in the culture of remembrance today. The research for the book "Esthers Spuren" was awarded the Special Prize for Judaism or Anti-Semitism by the Humboldt University in Berlin and the Silten Prize for Holocaust Research. Benet Lehmann also writes for newspapers and magazines.

The reading is a joint event of the Commissioner for Jewish Life and Against Anti-Semitism M-V and the Museum Hagenow. Admission is free!

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