A new interview with Professor Cathy Gelbin, member of the LBI London executive board, offers a personal account of Jewish life, identity and memory in the German Democratic Republic.
Professor Gelbin grew up in an international German-American Jewish family in East Berlin. In conversation with Ruth Preusse for the House of the Wannsee Conference (https://www.ghwk.de/en), she reflects on her childhood, her search for other Jewish people and the place of Jewish identity in East German society.
She describes a family life shaped by open political discussion, alongside the experience of being visibly different. Although she felt at home in many respects, she also recalls the caution and insecurity that accompanied being Jewish in the GDR.
The interview explores her involvement with the East Berlin Jewish community in the early 1980s, at a time when its membership was small and ageing. Professor Gelbin recalls finding friendship and a sense of belonging in its youth group, where Jewish history and identity could be discussed openly.
She also reflects on official commemoration of National Socialism in the GDR, its focus on resistance and its limited attention to Jewish experience. Later, in West Berlin, she became involved in lesbian-feminist circles and encountered further questions about Jewish identity, memory and exclusion.
Professor Gelbin is Professor of Film Studies and German Studies at the University of Manchester. Her research examines Holocaust representation, video testimony and modern German-speaking Jewish culture. She is currently researching Jewish dissidence in the GDR.
The interview is a reflection on how personal experience, political life and cultural memory intersect. It offers much to consider for anyone interested in Jewish life in the GDR and the continuing history of Holocaust remembrance.
Read the full interview: https://www.ghwk.de/en/press/newsletter/v/2026-and-that-wasnt-easy-in-t….
