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Mar 6, 2017, 8:07 PM

The courageous women of Rosenstrasse

This time, I’ll finish the story of my recent posts about the Jews, who were married to “Aryans” and considered “privileged Jews”, but nevertheless arrested on February 27th and 28th 1943. Were they eventually deported and murdered like the thousands of other Jews, who were also kidnapped...

Feb 28, 2017, 12:11 AM

Berlin’s “Day of Inferno”

It happened today. On February 27th, 1943. By then, the Nazis had already been deporting Jews for about a year and a half – at first to various ghettos in Eastern Europe, later on mainly to Theresienstadt, the new “showcase Jewish town”. Yet many Jews...

Feb 26, 2017, 2:57 PM

“Privileged Jews”: Did the Nazis care so much?

In my last post, I described the Nazi distinction between normal Jews and “privileged” Jews married to “Aryan” spouses. This time I’d like to address a much more difficult question: What might have been the reason for giving those Jews significant privileges? What makes this...

Feb 23, 2017, 6:36 PM

Mixed Marriages in Nazi Germany

In February 1945 the Nazis had almost lost the war and were rapidly losing control – and their ability to deport people to the camps. Yet there were still Jews in German cities, predominantly in Berlin. Most of them – about 4,000 in Berlin –...

Feb 8, 2017, 5:35 PM

Germany’s odd “Reunification Tax”

I’m often asked by my guests about the reunification process: Is it already a thing of the past or can it still be felt? While in most aspects of everyday life this process is no longer an issue one often becomes aware of, there are exceptions, specifically...

Jan 26, 2017, 9:59 PM

Hannah Arendt and the German understanding of the Holocaust

On the occasion of tomorrow’s Holocaust remembrance day, I’ll continue my previous post and elaborate about the German dilemma regarding the Holocaust and its meaning. Generally speaking, Germany is quite ambivalent about what the extermination – which very few would deny – should mean. On...

Jan 24, 2017, 1:42 AM

Germany’s Holocaust remembrance day: Is it really what it seems to be?

This week, on Friday, Germany will officially commemorate the Holocaust. It is done annually on January 27th, because on this date in 1945, Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz. Although the murders didn’t stop upon the liberation of Auschwitz, this date is, since 1996, Germany’s official “Day of...

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About Me

Yoav Sapir is a guide with Berlin Jewish Tours. He studied German-Jewish history in Jerusalem, Vienna, Heidelberg and Berlin.