Ties of Belonging: A Transnational History of German Jewish Identities

Anne Clara Schenderlein
History
UC San Diego

This dissertation concerned the history of German Jewish refugees from the Nazis and their families on the West Coast of the United States and the ways they have negotiated their German Jewish identity. The research encompassed the period since the 1930s, with a starting point of 1934 when a group of refugees from the Nazis formed a German Jewish Club in Los Angeles. Following the history of the Club, and its members and their descendants up to the recent past, and this dissertation looked at refugees and their children and grandchildren as they returned to Germany for temporary visits to former home towns through German “Visitor Programs.” The research focused on issues of identity and its interrelations with memory, emotion, and place in order to gain intimate insights into the complex lived histories of German Jews and their relations to Germany and the United States.