Vernissage of the exhibition "BELF - weitergeblättert" in Heidelberg

Following its highly acclaimed presentation at the University of Vienna, the exhibition "BELF. History of a Viennese Jewish Bookshop" is now coming to Heidelberg in an expanded form. Curated by Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek and Monika Schreiber-Humer, the show tells the moving story of the Jewish Belf family of booksellers and publishers - from the founding of their business in 1868 to its violent destruction in the course of the National Socialist pogroms in November 1938.

At the center of the story is the fate of a family that was persecuted, disenfranchised and robbed of all its possessions. The looted books were scattered all over the world - traces of which can still be found in Heidelberg today. As part of the provenance research in the Albert Einstein Library of the Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies, several books from the former Belf bookshop were identified: both from the in-house publishing house and from the range of the former store.

The Heidelberg presentation makes these rediscovered holdings visible for the first time and brings them together with loans from the Belf family's descendants. This makes the story of loss, dispersion and recovery concrete and tangible.

Under the title "BELF - weitergeblättert" (BELF - leafing on), the exhibition also extends the view beyond the period of National Socialism: it focuses on the resumption of Jewish scholarship after 1945. An impressive example of this is the so-called "Survivors' Talmud", a monumental edition of the Babylonian Talmud in 19 volumes, which was printed from 1946 by Winter-Verlag in Heidelberg - a symbol of a new beginning and cultural continuity after the Shoah.

Program - Vernissage "BELF - weitergeblättert"
Program in room S4, exhibition in the foyer
Moderation: Dr. Louise Hecht

• Welcome and greeting: Dr. Andreas Brämer, Rector
• Greeting: Prof. Dr. Michael Schmitt, Friends of the HfJS
• Introduction to the exhibition: Philipp Zschommler
• Lecture: Adam Krupnick (descendant of the Belf family) My family research
• Tour of the exhibition
• Reception afterwards (ground floor, aquarium or canteen)

Accompanying: Book table and banner of the Winter publishing house

Registration required (registration@hfjs.eu)!

The exhibition was made possible by the Piplack-Gabelmann Foundation, the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation, the Friends of the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien and the German Lost Art Foundation.