The Establishment, Dissolution, and Restoration of Heimat in German-Jewish Narratives by Stefanie Zweig and Jeanine Meerapfel
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The Establishment, Dissolution, and Restoration of Heimat in German-Jewish Narratives by Stefanie Zweig and Jeanine Meerapfel By Stefany R. Van Scoyk Submitted to the graduate degree program in Germanic Languages and Literatures and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson Dr. Leonie Marx ________________________________ Dr. William Keel ________________________________ Dr. Ari Linden ________________________________ Dr. Maris Carlson ________________________________ Dr. Henry Bial Date Defended: May 11, 2016 ii The Dissertation Committee for Stefany R. Van Scoyk certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Establishment, Dissolution, and Restoration of Heimat In German-Jewish Narratives by Stefanie Zweig and Jeanine Meerapfel ________________________________ Chairperson Professor Leonie A. Marx Date approved: July 21, 2016 iii Abstract Writers and filmmakers of second-generation Holocaust survivors often seek to establish tenuous continuities between their parents’ pre-exile Heimat and their own experiences of German culture through their artistic works. The novelist Stefanie Zweig and the filmmaker Jeanine Meerapfel, as members of the second generation, have composed narratives that create such continuities and their complexities in the search for place and the quest for belonging. This dissertation focuses on Zweig’s novels of the Rothschildallee (2008-2012) and Meerapfel’s feature film Der deutsche Freund (2012), narratives that tell stories of this quest for Heimat from the perspectives of the first and second generations, and analyzes the complexities of this search. To elucidate aspects of this search for place and belonging, this analysis works with conceptual tools borrowed from cultural geography and the Bakhtinian chronotope. The application of material and non-material traces from cultural geography in the analysis of these works reveals the unique character of German-Jewish geography as presented in these narratives. Through the Bakhtinian chronotope, an in-depth analysis of Heimat at a given time and of its changes over time reveals the complex relationships between time, space, and places in both public and private spheres. The house and the threshold emerge as the most important chronotopes in the narratives and evolve from novel to novel and from the written to the cinematic medium. This analysis discusses the challenges of establishing Heimat from the perspective of the parent generation. The house in the Rothschildallee becomes symbolic of German-Jewish culture in its negotiation between the public and private spheres while the threshold here becomes a point of momentous crossings. Furthermore, it identifies the children’s attitudes towards and expectations of the Heimat which their parents created for them. For the child generation, the threshold develops into a significant place of departures and arrivals that reveal the socio-cultural iv struggles for the younger Sternbergs. Over time, the chronotopes of the house and threshold respond to the processes of dissolution and restoration of Heimat, showing the interdependencies of the public and private spheres. Finally the analysis shows the difficulties in establishing and maintaining Heimat across different houses and thresholds set in various cultural geographies This analysis contributes to the study of Heimat from a German-Jewish perspective and points to developments in German-Jewish literature that has again become part of scholarly discourse in post-World War II literature and cinema. Zweig’s novels commemorate the German-Jewish Bildungsbürgertum and acknowledge the daily struggles involved in establishing Heimat. Meerapfel’s film treats the pursuit of a German-Jewish Heimat as one strand of a much broader story about the post-war quest for a place of home in two countries faced with the aftermath of exile and war crimes. v Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Prof. Leonie Marx for the continuous support of my PhD study and related research, for her patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. Her guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this dissertation. I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my PhD study. Besides my advisor, I would like to thank the rest of my disseration committee: Prof. William Keel, Prof. Ari Linden, Prof. Maria Carlson, and Prof. Henry Bial for their insightful comments and questions which incented me to widen my research from various perspectives. Finally, I would like to thank my mother Gwynne Gatewood Van Scoyk, Kari Wise Holland, Jennifer Van Scoyk, and Austyn Noblitt for their support and encouragement throughout the last two years. I would also like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dieter Saalmann who first inspired my love for German literature. vi Table of Contents 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Presentation of Topic ............................................................................................................ 1 1. 2 Existing Research and Thesis ............................................................................................... 3 1.3 Methodology ......................................................................................................................... 9 2 The Desire for Place: Es ist erreicht .......................................................................................... 16 2.1 Schein und Sein of Place: Designing and Establishing the Sternberg Home ...................... 19 2.2 Creating and Cultivating a Place in the Home .................................................................... 27 2.3 Moving within Urban Space: Frankfurt Neighborhoods ..................................................... 35 2.3.1 Ostend as a Place of Jewishness ................................................................................... 36 2.3.2 Nordend: A Place of Schein und Sein .......................................................................... 40 2.3.2.1 Günthersburgallee und Günthersburgpark as a Place of False Aspirations .......... 40 2.3.3 Johann Isidor Sternberg’s Places of Work ................................................................... 42 2.3.4 Otto Sternberg: Places of Education ............................................................................. 46 2.3.5 Places of Socializing ..................................................................................................... 48 2.4 Es ist erreicht: Achievement of Place and Emerging Doubt .............................................. 53 2.5 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................ 60 3 Expectation, Entitlement and Erosion of Place .......................................................................... 63 3.1 Expectation of Place ............................................................................................................ 65 3.1.1 Johann Isidor: Limitation of Place in German Society ................................................. 65 vii 3.1.2 Betsy: Continuity of Place ............................................................................................ 67 3.2 The New Generation: Entitlement of Place ......................................................................... 70 3.2.1 Anna: A Lack of Entitlement ........................................................................................ 71 3.2.2 Victoria: Entitlement to a Place of Performance and Admiration ................................ 76 3.2.3 Erwin: Entitlement to a Place of Personal Liberty ....................................................... 81 3.2.4 Clara: Entitlement to a Place of Acceptance ................................................................ 84 3.2.5 Alice: Entitlement to a Place of Comfort and Ease ...................................................... 86 3.3 Erosion of Place ............................................................................................................. 89 3.3.1 The Disappearance of the Rothschildallee ................................................................... 91 3.3.2 Frankfurt Streets as Places of Hostility ................................................................... 94 3.3.3 Public Places of Blatant Anti-Semitism: Wiedersehen mit Baden-Baden .................... 97 3.4 Chapter Summary ........................................................................................................... 98 4 Places of Dissolution and Restoration ..................................................................................... 101 4.1 Places of Dissolution ......................................................................................................... 102 4.1.1 Places of Stolen Heimat: Jewish Residences ........................................................ 103 4.1.2 A Place of Deadly Transformations: The Großmarkthalle ........................................ 107 4.1.3 A Place of Threatened Heimat: The Tenement at Thüringerstraße 11 ....................... 114 4.2. Places of Personal Survival and Refuge: Anna’s Apartments ......................................... 116 4.3 Places of Hope and Hopelessness: Zwischenräume .........................................................