It was a full house at the lovely RJ Julia bookstore on the Boston Post Road, Madison, CT this evening.
The audience paid close attention while I spoke and then asked some excellent questions. What they wanted to know was whether I had found ordinary Germans willing to be helpful, what had happened to the family’s Wannsee villa, the role of German insurance companies during the Third Reich, how the internet had assisted me in my research and if I had considered laying Stolpersteine at sites in Berlin mentioned in the book.
As I contributed a chapter, on the history of the H. Wolff international fur fashion company, we did a joint presentation. We showed over 70 slides of photos and video clips to illustrate the tragic story of the demise of the once glorious Berlin fashion industry and how the Nazis destroyed it.
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.
It was a full house at the lovely RJ Julia bookstore on the Boston Post Road, Madison, CT this evening.
