Chronicle of a rapprochement
The exhibition “Israelis und Deutsche” (Israelis and Germans) has opened at the German Bundestag, together with a musical premiere.
People in Israel and Germany who have attempted to engage with their opposite numbers subsequent to the War and the Shoah; people who have emphatically campaigned for a rapprochement between the two nations and its people – these are the people who are being recognized in “Israelis und Deutsche”, a travelling exhibition organized by DIG, the German-Israeli Association. But DIG also looks to the future – to the young, committed Israelis and Germans who will be shaping the relationship between the two countries, both now and in the future.
Important guests will be attending the opening at the exhibition’s first stop, Berlin, and it will be accompanied by special music. Norbert Lammert, President of the German Bundestag, Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, the Israeli Ambassador, and Reinhold Robbe, the President of the DIG, are speaking at Paul Löbe Haus on 15 October. The German-Israeli Philharmonic “Spring in the Negev – Friends in Music”, with musicians from the Philharmonie der Nationen and the Israel Sinfonietta Beer Sheva conducted by Justus Frantz will be premiering a composition entitled “Suspended Reality”. Gilad Hochman, an Israeli composer living in Berlin, was commissioned by conductor Frantz to compose a suitable piece to commemorate the establishment of diplomatic relations between Germany and Israel 50 years ago.
“In this travelling exhibition we are piecing together contemporary interviews, historical photographs and literary sources to create a many-voiced mosaic,” explains Alexandra Nocke, the exhibition’s curator. “The most important thing that we can achieve by so doing is to put a face to all those people in civil society who normally shy away from publicity and to lend them a voice.” The photographic, textual and video documentation brings to life not only the tentative rapprochement between Germans and Israelis in the 1950s and 1960s, but also both their close bond and their differences of opinion over the past decades.
As with historical developments, the exhibition, which is largely sponsored by the Federal Foreign Office, does not present the relations between the two nations in a linear chronology. Instead, it is based on more abstract organizational principles, with the six subject-related modules: Prologue, Rift, Rapprochement, Forerunners, Bonds and Difficulties. A timeline from 1949 to 2015 with the most important historical events complements the personal stories of around 160 people working in culture and the arts, politics, sports and in commerce from different generations in both countries.
The shape of the exhibition architecture and the materials used for it also reflect the unique quality of German-Israeli relations. Visitors get to see the faces and stories of famous and not so famous contemporary witnesses on metallic indoor sculptures. These include people such as journalists Erich Lüth and Rudolf Küstermeier who initiated a peace initiative between Germany and Israel back in August 1951, alongside the first official meetings between figures such as Konrad Adenauer and David Ben-Gurion or Marlene Dietrich and Teddy Kollek.
The DIG was founded in 1966, one year after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Today the association boasts 50 regional branches with just shy of 5,000 members. Their objective is to strengthen and develop the personal, cultural and economic ties between the people of Israel and Germany.
Between November 2015 and the end of 2016 this travelling exhibition will be on show in Augsburg, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Erfurt, Hamburg, Kassel, Leer, Nuremberg, Passau and Würzburg. The Hebrew version of the tour will start in Tel Aviv on 29 October 2015. Subsequent stopping-off points are Beer Sheva, Haifa and Jerusalem.
Israelis & Deutsche – the exhibition
Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft e. V.
16 October to 13 November 2015
Berlin, German Bundestag, Paul Löbe Haus