Jewish Museum’s Christoph Kreutzmüller

(Christoph Kreutzmüller) Dr. Christoph Kreutzmüller, a German scholar, has done seminal work, creating a database of businesses that were Jewish-owned in Nazi-era Berlin. As I’ve said previously, Christoph’s sleuthing for his book FINAL SALE IN BERLIN, The Destruction of Jewish Commercial Activity, 1930-1945 fills a gap in the record that so frustrated me while I was seeking restitution for…

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A Compelling Jewish Film

David Paul works as a judge in New York City. GERMAN SHEPHERD is a powerful short documentary of his attempts at coming to terms with the Holocaust, Germans and Germany. Directed by Nils Bergendal, the short premiered in 2014 and has enjoyed, deservedly, huge success on the film festival circuit. I find GERMAN SHEPHERD compelling, and believe you…

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Berlin Storyteller Dennis Behnke

Dennis Behnke — known as ‘The Berlin Storyteller’ — offers a variety of guided tours of Germany’s capital city. You can learn about Dennis’s tours here. In this interview, I catch up with Dennis. 1) How did you come to call yourself ‘The Berlin Storyteller’? When I was 15 years old, my school class went on…

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Author’s Corner: Ralph Blumenthal

Author Ralph Blumenthal, whose parents were born in Berlin, worked for 45 years for The New York Times, and still contributes to the paper regularly. I am pleased to present my interview of this outstanding writer. 1) Do you remember when you first heard about the Holocaust, and what you thought about it at the…

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Interview with Architect Peter Eisenman

Architect Peter Eisenman is famed for, among other buildings, the Wexner Center for the Arts, the Aronoff Center for Design and Art, and the City of Culture in Galicia, Spain. Eisenman also designed the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, located just one block south of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Recently, I spoke with Eisenman…

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Op-Ed: HEAR: Helen Mirren

Dame Helen Mirren recently testified in front of two United States Senate subcommittees. The Oscar-winning actress asked Senators to pass a proposed bill that would give victims of Holocaust-era persecution and their heirs a fair chance to recover Nazi-robbed art. Whereas the Nazis stole an estimated 650,000 works, only a minuscule percentage of the victims…

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AUTHOR’S CORNER SONIA TAITZ

(Photo by H&H Photographers from author’s website) Author Sonia Taitz positively brims with talent. Her works include: 1) MOTHERING HEIGHTS; 2) IN THE KING’S ARMS; 3) THE WATCHMAKER’S DAUGHTER; and 4) DOWN UNDER. Sonia was born in New York to two concentration camp survivors. Her coming-of-age memoir THE WATCHMAKER’S DAUGHTER is an enchantingly-written, heartfelt portrait of her parents…

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Yale Professor Jason Stanley

My cousin Jason Stanley — who often writes for The New York Times — is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. My father Gerhard Intrator had a brother, Alexander, whose son Manfred was Jason’s father. As Jason and I have shared family roots in Berlin, I recently asked him several questions about that city.…

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