This is the keynote speech for the Crossing Borders conference. To book tickets for the main conference, please visit https://www.lbilondon.ac.uk/crossing-borders-2026
A new edited volume, Holocaust Letters: Methodologies, Cases and Reflections, has recently been published, featuring a chapter by LBI London Director Joseph Cronin.
Edited by Clara Dijkstra, Charlie Knight (a member of the LBI London board), Sandra Lipner, and Christine Schmidt of the Wiener Holocaust Library, the volume grew out of an exhibition at the library and explores Holocaust-era correspondence as historical sources. The essays examine letters both as texts and as material objects, showing how they document the ways individuals understood and navigated their circumstances during the Holocaust and in its aftermath.
After the German November pogroms of 1938, the British government responded with the unprecedented admission of around 10,000 Jewish children as part of the Kindertransport, but there was little state support for adult refugees. This is where local initiatives came to the fore – church groups, welfare associations and aid committees provided accommodation in improvised homes and organised training programmes.
LBI London recently caught up with Dr Alexander Brown, the Institute’s new Postdoctoral Fellow, whose research interrogates the complexities of Holocaust memory in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Brown’s work, supported by the Leverhulme Trust, reconsiders long-held assumptions about antifascism, remembrance, and historical responsibility in the ‘other Germany’.
On International Women’s Day, we celebrate Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), the trailblazing Jewish feminist known as ‘Anna O.’ in Freud’s studies, who overcame personal hardship to lead social reform.
She founded the Jüdischer Frauenbund in 1904, championed girls’ education, fought human trafficking, and created homes like Neu-Isenburg for vulnerable Jewish women and children, blending Orthodox faith with bold activism for gender equality.
Discover her ‘secret life’ of prayers, welfare work, and revolution in our snapshot and expert interview – visit for more:
This film club event has now ended, however our interview with producer Sir Bernard Zissman is still available to view online.
Theodor Herzl: The Man Behind Israel
(Dom Howlett, James Dann, United Kingdom, 2025)
Today marks the birthday of Austrian footballer Hans Menasse (1930–2022), born in Vienna to a Jewish father and a Christian mother. Following the Anschluss and the onset of persecution against Jewish citizens, his family attempted to secure travel permits but were unsuccessful. In November 1938, Hans and his older brother Kurt were evacuated to England on the Kindertransport. Placed with a foster family in Dunstable, Hans played football for the local Pioneer Boys Club before joining Luton Town’s youth team (the Luton Town Colts) in 1946.
We are delighted to welcome Dr Alexander Brown to the LBI London as our new Postdoctoral Researcher. Dr Brown joins us for a one-year position, bringing outstanding expertise in the history and memory of state socialism in East Germany.
Currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Liverpool, Dr Brown’s research investigates how the German Democratic Republic engaged with the memory of fascism and the Holocaust, and how these legacies continue to shape political and cultural discourse in unified Germany.
The Leo Baeck Institute London is delighted to announce a new addition to our library: Displaced at Home: Ein Ort, den man zuhause nennt, the catalogue accompanying the Sara Nussbaum Zentrum für Jüdisches Leben’s acclaimed exhibition on 20th-century Jewish life in Kassel.
Bertha Pappenheim (1859-1936) was one of the most prominent Austrian-Jewish women’s rights activists and social reformers of the early twentieth century.
