"Nachgefragt: Frankfurt and National Socialism"
The Young Museum's exhibition was aimed at families with children to introduce them to the topic of National Socialism in an age-appropriate way.
The exhibition of the Young Museum of the Historical Museum Frankfurt am Main (December 9, 2021 - February 4, 2024) was aimed at families with children in order to introduce them to the topic of National Socialism in an age-appropriate way. On behalf of the Young Museum, I sifted through audiovisual sources, photographs and documents of people who had spent their childhood and youth in Frankfurt am Main during the National Socialist era. These included children who were persecuted as Jews or as part of a subculture, as well as those who were in the Hitler Youth. I researched the databases of the Arolsen Archives, the Wiener Library, the Fritz Bauer Institute, the Frankfurt Institute for City History and Hessischer Rundfunk.
The core of my work was to evaluate eyewitness interviews according to categories such as family, school and leisure time in order to reconstruct the lifeworld of children under National Socialism. My findings were also incorporated into the educational guide for the exhibition, which contains information for adults on how they can talk to their children about National Socialism.
My essay on the project was also published in the magazine “Einsicht” (issue 22), the bulletin of the Fritz Bauer Institute. This is aimed at people without archival experience and provides suggestions for researching and dealing with eyewitness accounts from former Frankfurt schoolchildren.