Jewish Life in Munich in the 1950s and ’60s

An exhibition by students in the Department of Jewish History and Culture at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in cooperation with the Munich City Archives and the Jewish Museum

For many Jews a life in Germany after the Shoah was unthinkable. Munich was initially merely a station on the way to emigrating to what was then called Palestine or the USA. However, for some, their stay in the Bavarian capital became something permanent. They found work, were actively involved in the community, and founded families.

What was it like for a Jewish child to grow up in Munich? Interviews with representatives of the first generation of Munich’s Jews who grew up here after the Shoah and contemporary exhibits pick up on the different questions asked.

The conversations recorded revolve around how Jews felt in the former “city of the perpetrators,” the importance of religion, the meaning of freedom, their attitude toward the State of Israel, and talking about the traumatic past within their own families.