Before the Nazis took pow­er, Jew­ish busi­ness­peo­ple in Berlin thrived along­side their non-Jew­ish neigh­bors. But Nazi racism changed that, grad­u­al­ly destroy­ing Jew­ish busi­ness­es before mur­der­ing the Jews them­selves. Recon­struct­ing the fate of more than 8,000 com­pa­nies, this book offers the first com­pre­hen­sive analy­sis of Jew­ish eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty and its oblit­er­a­tion. Rather than just exam­in­ing the steps tak­en by the per­se­cu­tors, it also tells the sto­ries of Jew­ish strate­gies in coun­ter­ing the effects of per­se­cu­tion. In doing so, this book expos­es a fas­ci­nat­ing para­dox where Berlin, serv­ing as the admin­is­tra­tive heart of the Third Reich, was also the site of a dense net­work for Jew­ish self-help and assertion.

Vis­it­ing Scribe: Christoph Kreutzmüller

Adding Dimen­sion to the Online Data­base of Jew­ish Busi­ness­es in Berlin

Max Wisen’s Tai­lor Shop