Mannheim University’s FORUM magazine interviewed me for an article entitled “An Awkward Legacy” in which I tell the story of what I discovered in the course of researching “Stolen Legacy”.
This is the culmination of many years of research into the past of Dr. Kurt Hamann – one-time head of the Victoria Insurance Company which foreclosed on my family’s property in 1937. Dr. Hamann had a foundation named in his honor at the university. The result of my investigations was to uncover his unsavory history during the Third Reich – which led to the university deciding to rename the foundation.
Today in Munich at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte – Institute of Contemporary History – speaking at a seminar for provenance researchers.
The Freie University of Berlin has devised a training course for museum staff and I was invited to talk about the meaning of restitution for families whose possessions were stolen, or acquired cheaply at auction, during the Third Reich.
I took along a few items of silverware passed down the generations from my grandmother to my mother and now to me. Audience members enjoyed handling them and spotting the family initial engraved on the cake server as well as the fish knives and forks. And they could also see the name of the manufacturer, the famous Berlin firm of Friedlaender Brothers, once jewelers to the Kaiser.
Delivering this term’s lecture today as part of the Ging Wong Seminar Series at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University.
The purpose of this lecture series is to give graduate students an insight into the world of work – which they are soon to enter. I was asked to speak about my time at the college, what the experience had taught me, my career after leaving Oxford, any advice I might be able to offer about pursuing jobs in journalism and what had prompted me to write a book.
The University of Mannheim has posted on the Dr. Kurt-Hamann Foundation website its recognition of the role of “Stolen Legacy” in leading to the proposed change of name.
