Dr Jael Geis
The majority of Jews living in Germany in the immediate aftermath of the war expressed very little desire for revenge. Considering the Nazi aggression directed at every single Jew and Judaism on the one hand, and the complete suppression of one's own aggression as a condition of survival on the other hand, one would have expected a ringing cry for vengeance at the very least. Why was there so little of it? In order to understand this surprising absence, Dr Geis will investigate issues relating to estrangement, isolation, selfpreservation, lack of energy and last but not least, the teachings of Judaism.
Jael Geis is a freelance historian from Berlin. Her specialist field is German-Jewish relations of the immediate post-war period. She is the author of Leftover Lives: Jews of German Descent in the British and American Zones of Germany 1945-1949. She is currently working on Jews in the Federal Republic of Germany during the 1950s.
