The last Jewish school class in Augsburg
Lifelines 2.0 in memory of the November pogrom
In April 1939, shortly before his forced emigration, Fritz Levy – Augsburg’s last Jewish teacher – received a special farewell gift: a photo album with individual and group photos of his 8- to 14-year-old pupils. It lay unnoticed in a garage for decades until last year, when his son Frank Tuteur digitised it and sent it to his relative Gidon Lev.
Lev began researching and discovered the stories behind the faces. Many of the children were victims of the Shoah. Some, whose names were previously unknown in Augsburg, are now finally given a face. Gidon Lev also came across two poetry albums belonging to girls in this class who managed to flee to the USA in time – with touching entries from classmates who often did not survive. Gidon Lev tracked down the descendants of these children worldwide and brought them together in moving digital encounters.
This evening, the album will be presented to the public for the first time – with Frank Tuteur (California) and Gidon Lev, who brings the stories behind the pictures to life and talks about remembrance in our time.
About LIFELINES
The LEBENSLINIEN eyewitness project, which was launched in 2002 by the Jewish Museum Augsburg Swabia and the Sensemble Theatre, consisted of four sub-projects for many years: a matinee at the theatre, eyewitness workshops with school classes, which were recorded and made available on DVD, and a catalogue on the respective LEBENSLINIEN – an offer for passing on and reading.
As there are now only a few first-generation contemporary witnesses left, for whom travelling to Germany is hardly possible anymore, LEBENSLINIEN has been continued since 2019 as LEBENSLINIEN 2.0, which focuses on the second and third generations.
An overview of the publications in the LEBENSLINIEN series can be found here.