Family history(ies) between perpetrators and victims

Based on this experience and the cinematic search for traces by Nirit Ben-Joseph, the Mitte Museum invites you to a special evening of conversation and discussion on October 30, 2025 at 6 pm (Pankstraße 47, 13357 Berlin).


These are stories that come from opposite worlds - and yet find a common language:

Israeli director and Berlin tour guide Nirit Ben-Joseph grew up believing that her family was not affected by the Holocaust. It was only in Berlin that she discovered through a chance encounter that her relatives Kurt and Thekla Feuerring had lived here before they were murdered by the Nazis. This shocking discovery gave rise to her documentary "You look so German!" (2018) - a personal search for clues that raises questions about Jewish life in the "land of perpetrators", breaks the family's silence and makes a repressed past visible.

Prof. Dr. Dirk Kaesler (born 1944 in Wiesbaden, in the "Heim Taunus" of the SS association "Lebensborn e.V."), sociologist emeritus, examines the past in his book "Lügen und Scham. German Lives" (2023), he deals with the late realization that he was born as part of the National Socialist "Lebensborn" program - a project that was intended to promote a supposedly "Aryan elite". His autobiographical search for traces combines personal identity with collective history and shows how strongly individual lives are shaped by the political ruptures in Germany between the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era and the post-war period.


In an exchange with Nathan Friedenberg, the director of the Mitte Museum, both will explore the question of how the past continues to have an impact on families today. The evening will focus on reflections on "truth", responsibility and remembrance - beyond accusations of guilt, but with an awareness of the historical burden. Film clips and an open discussion invite the audience to contribute their own perspectives.


(IN GERMAN)