Lecture
As part of the 10th Jewish Culture Days, October 25 through November 8, 2026, in cooperation with the Friends of the Max Samuel House (Förderverein des Max-Samuel-Hauses e.V.)
After 1945, it was anything but a given that Jewish survivors would dare to make a fresh start in the “land of the perpetrators.”
This makes it all the more necessary to ask “how” and “why” a few survivors rebuilt Jewish community life in postwar Germany.
Using the example of Jewish communities in the Ruhr region, Sebastian Braun examines how Jewish men and women reestablished themselves after the Shoah and what emotions were associated with this new beginning. Drawing on historical documents, he attempts to reconstruct their motives and feelings and provides insights into his research findings to date.
Sebastian Braun studied German language and literature and history at the University of Duisburg-Essen. From 2018 to 2020, he worked as a research intern at the House of History of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn and subsequently at the Jewish Museum of Westphalia. Since 2022, he has been a research assistant and doctoral candidate in the “History and Its Didactics” department at the University of Wuppertal.
