Family album - from the lives of Görlitz's Jews with Lauren Leiderman

A century ago, Jews in Görlitz were respected and committed citizens of the city. Their everyday culture was above all - German.

Görlitz resident Lauren Leiderman has made contact with many descendants of Jewish families from Görlitz. At the end of June, families from many countries will be travelling to Görlitz - to the homeland of their grandparents. Every second Tuesday of the month, Lauren Leiderman introduces a family. She shows pictures from the family album and public contemporary documents.

Today: the Freundlich and Miodowski families

Their story literally begins with light. Salomon Freundlich came to Görlitz from what is now Poland at the end of the 19th century and helped to electrify the town by installing gas lighting and later welcoming the new age of electricity. Together with his wife Rosa, née Miodowski, he ran a well-known shop for lamps and electrical appliances in Berliner Straße - an address that is still a silent witness to the once flourishing Jewish business life in Görlitz.

Behind this image of stability and success, however, lies a story of remarkable consequence and devastating rupture. The Freundlich and Miodowski families produced electricians and entrepreneurs, social workers and scientists - people who helped shape modern life in a way that hardly anyone could have imagined. One son would later contribute to technologies that shaped the 20th century; another generation built businesses, stood up for workers and dedicated their lives to public service.

Then came the collapse.

What followed was not a single flight, but many: Property was expropriated, lives destroyed, families scattered across continents. Some fled early. Others were imprisoned, forced into exile or barely survived through extraordinary courage and chance. By the end of the war, entire branches of the family had disappeared - while those who survived took Görlitz with them to New York, Bolivia, Israel and the Philippines.

This evening traces the network of a family that begins in Berliner Strasse and extends into the heart of modern science, social justice and exile - and shows how the story of one Görlitz family illuminates both the promise and the cost of modernity.

The event will take place on a small scale in the exhibition room of the Kulturforum. A maximum of 25 places are available. Please register in advance by email: kira.rohloff@kultur-goerlitz.de.

Cultural Forum Görlitz Synagogue
Otto-Müller-Straße 3
02826 Görlitz