The 90th Anniversary of the Book Burning
A look at our “Reading on the book burnings” series
In May 1933, a public book-burning campaign, which was planned and orchestrated by the German Student Union, took place in about thirty German cities. This action marked the beginning of the persecution of Jewish authors and other writers whom the Nazis deemed politically undesirable.
Five years ago, on the 85th anniversary of these events, we created a special exhibition in cooperation with Aktives Museum Faschismus und Widerstand in Berlin e.V. and the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin. The show examined the role of different Berlin libraries in banning, confiscating, and looting books and holdings.
As part of the program accompanying this exhibition, we organized the first “reading from burned books” event. The writers Judith Hermann, Hanna Lemke and Per Leo, the translator Gregor Runge, and publisher Jörg Sundermeier read texts by Lisa Tetzner, Irmgard Keun, Ernst Glaeser, Joseph Roth, and Erich Mühsam.
The event was so successful that we decided to make it an annual series, run by Monika Sommerer, director of our Joseph Wulf Library, and me, serving at the time as a representative of the Education Department. From the second year on, part of the concept was to have an overarching theme that connected the five selected works. In addition, we wanted the readers to come from the literary scene, as they had at the inaugural event. We planned to have them read ten-minute passages from books that we had chosen that covered as many different genres as possible. We also wanted to provide information about the author’s experience of persecution. In the second year, the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, we only chose books that were written by women. Three writers — Hanna Lemke, Ursula Krechel, and Anke Stelling as well as the publishers Britta Jürgs and Nora Pester —read texts by Gabriele Tergit, Gina Kaus, Vicki Baum, Maria Leitner, and Clara Zetkin.
When the Corona pandemic began in 2020, we quickly had to come up with an alternative to a public reading. Digital events for people staying at home became very popular and led to our decision to publish the readings as short podcasts on our website. Our readers — the writers Manja Präkels, Tilman Rammstedt, Gregor Sander, and Judith Schalansky and the publisher Thomas Sparr — recorded themselves at home and we provided additional information in the form of short written introductions. This year, the focus was on texts written at the end of the war in 1945 by authors who were affected by the book burnings. These audio recordings are still available.
The same readers participated in 2021. Only Judith Schalansky was unable to attend and was replaced by Markus Liske. Since large gatherings were still not permitted, we planned — in cooperation with the “Koordinierungsstelle Historische Stadtmarkierungen” represented by Nora Hogrefe — video readings as “interventions in urban space”. We recorded the readings in front of memorial plaques marking the last places where the writers had lived or found refuge in Berlin before they were forced to flee or were murdered.
Finally, last year, we once again were able to host a “traditional” reading. The theme was “Persecuted Journalists”. Gesa Ufer (rbb/Deutschlandfunk), Dr Florian Klenk (Falter), Ulrike Winkelmann (taz), and Kaspar Nürnberg (Aktives Museum) — who stood in for Deniz Yücel, who was unable to attend at the last minute — read texts by Gabriele Tergit, Richard Arnold Bermann, Adelheid Popp, and Leo Hirsch.
Planning for the next reading is already well underway. The topic will correspond with this year’s theme of Antisemitism. One thing, however, will be significantly different this year: Monika Sommerer is leaving the memorial this spring to run the library of the Jewish Museum. Her role will be taken over by the library team. We wish Monika all the best for the future and look forward to welcoming her as an audience member at the reading on 10 May 2023!
Text: Dr Ruth Preusse