Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past is a new title in OUP's Graphic History Series that chronicles the events of the Holocaust and its aftermath in a small village in rural Germany. Based on meticulous research and using powerful visual storytelling, the book provides a multilayered narrative that explores the experiences of both Jewish and non-Jewish villagers from the First World War to the present. Its focus on how ""ordinary"" people experienced this time offers a new and illuminating insight into everyday life and the processes of violence, rupture, and reconciliation that characterized the history of the twentieth century in Germany and beyond. The graphic narrative is accompanied by source documents published in English translation for the first time, an essay on the wider historical context, and an incisive reflection on the writing of this book--and of history more broadly.
List of Maps, Tables, and Figures Preface Acknowledgments About the Authors and the Illustrator Part I: The Graphic History Chapter 1: Oberbrechen Chapter 2: Nazi Persecution Chapter 3: War, Holocaust, and Rescue Chapter 4: Justice? Chapter 5: The Orange Book Chapter 6: Epilogue Part II: The Sources Document 1: Letter from an Unknown Relative to Herman Stern in Valley City, North Dakota, July 24, 1933 Document 2: Letter from Dora and Moses Stern, Oberbrechen, to Herman Stern in Valley City, North Dakota, December 31, 1933 Document 3: Letter from Ilse Stern, [New York], to Herman Stern in Valley City, North Dakota, March 15, 1939 Document 4: Letter from Herman Stern, Valley City, North Dakota, to James S. Milloy in Washington, DC, January 15, 1941 Document 5: Letter from Herman Stern, Valley City, North Dakota, to Ruth Harrison, Office of James S. Milloy in Washington, DC, March 19, 1941 Document 6: Letter from Herman Stern, Valley City, North Dakota, to US Secretary of State Cordell Hull in Washington, DC, August 27, 1941 Document 7: Eugen Caspary, Diary Entry, November 16, 1944 Document 8: Carl Reifert, Entry in the Oberbrechen School Chronicle Detailing Events in 1945, undated. Document 9: Father Alois Kunz, Statement in the Denazification Case of Former Oberbrechen Mayor Hugo Trost, Oberbrechen, April 29, 1948 Document 10: Letter from Franz Pabst, Flörsheim am Main, to the Denazification Board in Limburg, May 22, 1948 Document 11: Letter from Kurt Stern, New York, to the Denazification Board in Limburg, July 12, 1948. Document 12: Letter from Albert Schmidt, Oberbrechen, to Herman Stern in Valley City, North Dakota, July 20, 1948 Document 13: Minutes of the Public Session of the Appeals Court in Wiesbaden, Reviewing the Decision of the Denazification Board in Limburg, December 13, 1949 Document 14: Irene Lenkiewicz, née Lichtenstein, Account of Her Life under Nazi Persecution and in Exile, Composed in Córdoba, Argentina, November 25, 1958 Document 15: Letter from Carl Reifert to the Compensation Office in Wiesbaden, May 3, 1960 Document 16: Letter from the Compensation Office, Wiesbaden, to Gertrud Marx in Oberbrechen, June 16, 1961 Document 17: Letter from Gertrud Marx, Oberbrechen, to the Compensation Office in Wiesbaden, July 1, 1961 Document 18: Letter from Mayor Josef Keuler, Oberbrechen, to the Wiesbaden District Administrator, June 26, 1961 Document 19: Medical Opinion from Neurology Specialists for Selma Altman, The Hacker Clinic, Beverly Hills, California, March 1966 Document 20: Letter from Selma Altman, Los Angeles, to Mayor Josef Kramm in Oberbrechen, November 26, 1973 Document 21: Letter from Eugen Caspary, Niederselters, to Herman Stern in Valley City, North Dakota, July 7, 1974 Document 22: Letter from Gustave and Gertrude Stern, Seattle, to Eugen Caspary in Niederselters, July 11, 1974 Document 23: Letter from Gustave Stern, Seattle, to Mayor Josef Kramm in Oberbrechen, August 1, 1974 Document 24: Letter from Gustave Stern, Seattle, to Eugen Caspary, Niederselters, September 28, 1974 Document 25: Eugen Caspary, ""Jewish Citizens in Oberbrechen, 1711-1942: A Survey,"" 1975 Document 26: Nassauische Landeszeitung, Report on Kurt Lichtenstein's First Postwar Visit to Oberbrechen, April 24, 1978 Document 27: Christmas Greetings from Selma Altman, Los Angeles, to Mayor Josef Kramm in Oberbrechen, December 1980 Document 28: Provisional Minutes of a Meeting on ""Catholic Resistance Against the Hitler Youth and the Repercussions of the National Socialist Seizure of Power in Oberbrechen,"" July 30, 1984 Document 29: Nassauische Neue Presse, Report on Kurt Lichtenstein's Visit to Oberbrechen, November 29, 1986 Document 30: Letter from Eugen Caspary, Camberg-Erbach, to Kim Wünschmann in Jerusalem, July 3, 2013 Part III: The Historical Context 1. Oberbrechen 2. Nazi Persecution 3. War, Holocaust, and Rescue 4. Justice? 5. The ""Orange Book,"" or Local Attempts of Vergangenheitsbewältigung Part IV: The Making of Oberbrechen The Research Process Reflections on Methodology Using the Graphic History Medium Essay Questions Timeline Bibliography Family Trees
Stefanie Fischer holds a Ph.D. from Technische Universität Berlin. She is currently a faculty member at the Center for Antisemitism Research at Technische Universität Berlin. Her fields of scholarly research are German-Jewish history and Holocaust Studies. Fischer is the author of Jewish Cattle Traders in the German Countryside, 1919-1939: Economic Trust and Antisemitic Violence (2024) and has published numerous articles on German-Jewish history and culture. Kim Wünschmann is Director of the Institute for the History of the German Jews in Hamburg. She obtained her Ph.D. from Birkbeck, University of London. Her research centers on German-Jewish history, Holocaust Studies, and legal history. She is the author of Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps (2015) and coeditor of Living the German Revolution 1918-19: Expectations, Experiences, Responses (2023). Liz Clarke is a professional illustrator based in Cape Town, South Africa. She has contributed to a variety of graphic history publications, including several titles in the Graphic History Series published by Oxford University Press.
Reviews for Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts its Nazi Past: A Graphic History
Stefanie Fischer and Kim Wünschmann are to be congratulated on writing one of the most creative and usable books on the history of the Holocaust since the appearance of Art Spiegelman's Maus. Based upon impressive historical research, this slender but packed volume represents a new way of approaching the history of the Holocaust and the still looming shadow of that terrible event. * John Efron, University of California, Berkeley * Based on deep local research, this remarkable and highly original graphic history tells the moving story of the Hessian town of Oberbrechen and how it came to face the truth of its Nazi past. With crisply written text and evocative drawing, it narrates this history as a German story, a Jewish story, and as a story of German/Jewish cooperation. An inspired work—a must read! * Helmut Walser Smith, Vanderbilt University * This graphic history offers an engaging and moving portrayal of the experiences of and relations between Jews and non-Jews before, during, and long after the ravages of Nazism and the Holocaust. It vividly brings to life letters, newspaper articles, diary entries, and court proceedings (included in the volume) that chart the lives, displacement, murder, and attempts at evasion and reconciliation of the villagers of Oberbrechen. * Katherine R. Jolluck, Stanford University * Fischer, Wünschmann, and Clarke's exciting new graphic history grapples with the history of the Holocaust and its aftermath in a small town in rural Germany. Locally focused but global in scope, the book explores not only the web of relations between the Jewish and non-Jewish inhabitants of Oberbrechen, but also offers a compelling meditation on the tension between personal history and professional practice. * Emily Gioielli, Worcester Polytechnic Institute *
