Photo-Slideshow

Exhibition “Forgotten Records - Jewish Female Athletes” in the Centrum Judaicum Berlin

From June 21 to August 23, the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin is presenting the exhibition “Forgotten Records – Jewish Female Athletes”, which was compiled by the Contemporary Sports History research group at the University of Potsdam. The history of three Jewish female athletes is documented: Lilli Henoch (Berliner SC), Gretel Bergmann (Schild Stuttgart) and Martha Jacob (SC Charlottenburg).

The project was created on the occasion of the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics berlin 2009™, which will take place in Berlin from August 15 to 23, 2009. The Berlin Organising Committee for the Championships has incorporated the exhibition in its official cultural programme. Additionally, there will be an academic volume accompanying the exhibition, which the Organising Committee is also supporting.

The aim of the exhibition is to present the athletic successes of the three Jewish track and field athletes, who, like most Jewish athletes, were at first an integral part of the German athletic organisations. Only after they started to be excluded from the German clubs did they become part of the Jewish athletic movement. In addition, the creators of the exhibition, who met with “Zeitzeugen”, witnesses to history, during their research, wanted to recall the destinies of the most successful Jewish athletes between 1918 and 1945 and the systematic exclusion and destruction of Jewish sport (1933/1938).

The multi-medial exhibition was financed primarily through a 30,000-euro stipend by the foundation “Alfreid Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung”. The BOC 2009 GmbH made possible the printing of the catalogue. Additional partners of the university institution were the Centre for German Sport History Berlin-Brandenburg e.V., the Moses-Mendelssohn Centre for European-Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam, the Jewish Museum Berlin, the Berlin Sports Museum, the Institute for Jewish Studies at the Free University of Berlin and the New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum Foundation.

Following the World Championships in Athletics in August, the exhibition is to be displayed at other locations, as well.

June 21 – August 23, 2009

Opening Hours:

Closed on Saturdays and Jewish holidays.

Admission Fee:
2 Euro, reduced 1,50 Euro

Centrum Judaicum
Oranienburger Straße 28-30, 10117 Berlin

Accompanying volume: Berno Bahro/Jutta Braun/Hans Joachim Teichler (Eds.): Vergessene Rekorde. Jüdische Leichtathletinnen vor und nach 1933 (Forgotten Records. Female Jewish Athletes before and after 1933), Berlin 2009.

Additional information is available from Prof. Dr. Hans Joachim Teichler and Berno Bahro of the University of Potsdam at tel.: 0331/977-1738 and -1164, email: teichler@uni-potsdam.de and bahro@uni-potsdam.de.