Dresden Project, Indelible Marks GDR and the Continuing Presence of the Far Right

Monica Petzal Socialism, and the destruction of the ‘Florence of the Elbe’, but also of the harsh years under the The Dresden Project, Indelible Marks GDR and the continuing presence of the far right. Dresden’s status as a global icon of the The Dresden Project is an on-going reflection on destructive power of war has been politically my maternal family. The project explores a rich manipulated to serve each and all of its post war family archive, combining this with contemporary masters. Multiple idealisations of the city have historical documents and my own experience, become fixed in the collective and cultural through the fertile medium of print. memory, and make for ‘a city full of ghosts’. The prints were made after long consideration, in My mother, Hannalore Isakowitz, was born in studios in Dresden and London. The working 1915 in Tilsit, a small town in Eastern Prussia now process was enriched and clarified by a month within Russia. Her father, Erich Max Isakowitz, printing at the Grafikwerkstatt Dresden in early had been born in K önigsberg in 1891, and was a 2013. This visit included the annual Doctor and Dental surgeon. His training at the Universities of K önigsberg and Munich had been commemoration of the destruction of the city on Dresden Project IV February 13th 1945. interrupted by extensive military service during the Great War. My grandmother, Sofie Berlowitz, The family had various initial addresses in born in Eydtkuhnen in 1893, was the daughter of Dresden, both for Erich’s practice and for a prosperous businessman and brought a apartments. From 1930 they lived in a spacious considerable dowry to the marriage. Stylish and first floor apartment at Werderstrasse 44, Dresden well educated, she spoke English and had visited Plauen . The house was on the corner of a square, England, a factor that would eventually help the at the centre of which stood the Lukas Kirche, an family leave Germany. imposing late Victorian church and important Erich and Sofie, with their young daughter, always Dresden landmark. Erich practiced close by at known as Lore, left Tilsit in 1924 for Dresden, Königsberg Strasse 25. From 1926 Lore attended where they had family. This was to advance the Deutsche Oberschule in Plauen, now known as Erich’s practice, and to escape the growing anti- the Gymnasium Dresden Plauen. There is a Semitism in Eastern Prussia. Dresden was at that detailed record of her time at school including her time a thriving, highly sophisticated and attendance, all her school reports, and her Abitur, cosmopolitan city, a renowned centre for school leaving certificate, taken in spring 1933. academia, the visual arts, architecture and music. Lore also kept photo albums of school outings and of her foreign travels with her parents. Erich and Sofie became part of the cultured and creative Jewish bourgeoisie of Dresden, a On the 10th August 1933, Lore appears for the Dresden Project 1 community of about 5000. Like their fellow Jews, first time in Victor Klemperer’s diaries, now published in the UK as ‘I Shall Bear Witness;’ There is tragedy at the heart of my relationship to they attended the Semper synagogue, next to the renowned Bruhl’s Terrace, but regarded ‘Stepun sent me a Fraulein Isakowitz for Dresden. The city provided my mother and her vocational guidance. She took her school leaving parents with stability, prosperity and a themselves as completely assimilated and, above all, German. Their circle of friends included many certificate at Easter, father a Jewish dentist. She remarkable cultural life on their arrival in the would like to become an interpreter. How? The early 1920’s. From 1933 onwards it repressed and in the arts, and in particular the painter Conrad Felixmüller, his wife Londa, and their sons. institute in Mannheim has been moved to excluded them, forcing their departure in mid- Heidelberg, Gutkin removed –who knows where- 1936. It was subsequently destroyed by the Between 1930 and 1936 Erich bought, or took in lieu of payment, work by Felixmüller, including an non Aryans are not admitted. She wants to try country which had offered them safe haven, and a and study here for one or two semesters. life free from persecution. oil portrait of Sofie, drawings of himself and Lore, and a set of sixteen lithographs ‘Das Maler Leben’ Questionable if she’ll be allowed to ’. Even in 2013, it is not comfortable to be British – The Artist’s Life. At the time Klemperer was a Professor of and a Jew in Dresden, let alone one with a family Literature, specialising in the French connection. In a city dominated by a culture of Enlightenment, at the Technische Universität remembrance, there is constant unease and the Dresden. Despite his conversion to Protestantism always visible traces, not only of National in 1912, his strong identification with German culture and his marriage to an Aryan, Klemperer's including all of Erich’s dental equipment, and ‘The exemplary tragedy for the horrors of 20th century life deteriorated markedly after the Nazi rise to Artist’s Life’, were sent on by ship. warfare and a symbol of destruction ’. power in 1933. His diaries, written from 1933 to Erich and Sofie settled in North West London in Blame was, and continues to be, apportioned, 1959, have given us an invaluable historical and 1936, and were never again to see Germany. with Prime Minister Churchill, Sir Charles Portal, social document of life as a Jew under National Sofie died in 1951, and Erich in 1979. Lore visited Chief of the Air Staff and Sir Arthur Harris, known Socialism, and later under the GDR. Initially my Dresden with her husband Harry Petzal, and me as Bomber Harris, leading the field. Harris refused mother’s professor, he and his wife later both and my brother Peter in August 1985. It was a a peerage due to Bomber Command being denied became my grandfather’s patients . The traumatic visit in every way; highly anxious and a campaign medal. Bomber Command had Klemperer’s then became close friends of the distressed, she never recovered her equilibrium, suffered the highest casualty rate of any British Isakowitz family, and the diaries reveal detail of and died the following year. unit in WWII, losing 55,573 of its 125,000 men. daily life and social encounters during the period A memorial to Bomber Command was erected in 1933-1936. 2012 in St James Park despite many strenuous objections. Dresden Project V Apart from official documents and the Klemperer Blasted diaries, I know little about the lives of my mother Today, Dresden is a complex city. Dominated by and her parents between the rise of National an impressively reconstructed centre of palaces, Socialism and their departure for London in 1936. museums and churches, it is a thriving centre for Many of their friends and family left in 1933, Destruction Print V technology, music and the arts. It is also a city of including Sofie’s brother and his family who went The high explosive and incendiary bombing of Dresden soulless estates built under the GDR, housing an to Palestine. The family’s life became increasingly by British and US forces on February 13th and 14th increasingly disaffected and xenophobic constrained; Lore was not allowed to attend 1945, and the consequent firestorm, remains one of underclass. These desolate places are a fertile university in Germany, and so travelled to the the most controversial acts of World War II. environment for the neo Nazi movement which University of Montpelier in France for several Undoubtedly, fewer civilians were killed and less has staged in Dresden some of the largest months, where she took a diploma. Erich was not damage incurred than in raids on many other German demonstrations seen since German reunification. allowed to treat Aryans, and was placed under cities. However, the destruction of a city with such The annual commemoration of the bombing financial pressure to sell his thriving practice to a unparalleled cultural status, and its questionable serves as a focus for the far right to demonstrate, non-Jew. strategic relevance to ending the war, later incurred and for the Left and students to counter In 1935 Sofie travelled to London and with considerable unease on the part of the allies. As British demonstrate, leading to inevitable confrontation. formidable skill petitioned that Erich be invited historian Frederick Taylor wrote of the attacks; ‘ The There is a terrible irony in watching baton- and sponsored to come to England with his family, destruction of Dresden has an epically tragic quality to wielding German police officers, dressed in full and work as a Dental Surgeon. The German it. It was a wonderfully beautiful city and a symbol of riot gear, fighting black clad neo-Nazis on the regime then allowed the Isakowitz family to leave baroque humanism and all that was best in Germany. streets of Dresden in 2013. for London, but at a considerable financial price. It also contained all of the worst from Germany during The possessions they were allowed to take, the Nazi period. In that sense it is an absolutely This page, all images ©Monica Petzal 2013. Reverse reproduced with permission of the Jewish Chronicle ©2013. Thanks are due to Torsten Leupold and the staff of the Grafikwerkstatt Dresden, Artichoke Print Studio and Camberwell College of Art THE JEWISH CHRONICLE 14 FEATURES THEJC.COM 5 APRIL 2013 PHOTO: XXX Artist Monica Petzal reveals how working in Dresden helped her come to terms with her family’s tragic past FIRST CAME to Dresden in 1985 as part of a family “restitution” visit to my father’s birthplace of West Berlin.

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