East German-Jewish spaces in Berlin: Jewish heritage societies (Heimatvereine) and their diasporic milieu during the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

ABSTRACT Following the First World War and the loss of German territories in Posen, West Prussia and Silesia, many German Jews from those areas left their homes and settled either in Germany or moved to the USA, Latin America or Palestine. Quite a few of them came to Berlin. There and in other German cities as well they founded so called Heimatvereine, Jewish Heritage Societies. This article analyses the spaces those societies created – concrete spaces, in which people met, but also metaphorical spaces, in which a specific East-German-Jewish diasporic milieu was created and maintained that also transcended the borders of the Weimar Republic.