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Podcast: New Books in German Studies
Episode: Kerry Wallach, “Passing Illusions: Jewish Visibility in Weimar Germany” (U Michigan Press, 2017)
Description: What did it mean to be perceived as Jewish or non-Jewish in Weimar Germany? How, in an age of growing antisemitism, was Jewishness revealed, or made invisible? Kerry Wallach of Gettysburg College, explores these questions in her new book, Passing Illusions: Jewish Visibility in Weimar Germany (University of Michigan Press, 2017). Wallach examines an array of cultural texts including film, artwork, periodicals, and fiction in order to determine the different circumstances in which individuals sought to pass as non-Jewish, openly reveal their Jewishness, or were exposed as Jewish against their will. The concepts behind this complex history of private vs...