BA, Oberlin College, 2016, History

In 1960, during a resurgence of anti-Semitism, the Munich government initiated a program to invite Jewish former residents of Munich (who left during the 1930s and early 1940s due to the Nazis) back to their hometown for two-week visits. This program offered the participants a chance to reminisce about their childhoods, reconnect with their heritage, and visit their former communities. For the government, this program provided a crucial connection between the old prewar Munich and the new Munich of the 1960s, between Munich as the birthplace of National Socialism and Munich as a newly rebuilt city, ready to move forward from the Holocaust. This thesis relies primarily on correspondence between program participants and the Munich government from the Munich City Archive, oral interviews with individuals involved with the program, and secondary sources about postwar Munich and historical memory.

Committee: Annemarie Sammartino (Advisor) Subjects: European History; European Studies; Foreign Language; Germanic Literature; History; Holocaust Studies; Judaic Studies; Language; Modern History; Modern Language; Religion; Religious History