Although the initiative of documenting monuments of Jewish art and culture in Germany in their own right is not new, the groundwork that has gone into this historic process is itself worth documenting. Faced with the threat of dissolution of Jewish rural communities in Bavaria, because their members were migrating to the cities, the Association of Jewish Congregations of Bavaria decided in 1926 to form a "Historical Commission." Part of its task was to register the Jewish art monuments of Bavaria. Theodor Harburger was given the charge of art-historical and photographic documentation. He worked out the principles for the inventory. From 1926 to 1932 he visited about 130 communities; his photographic and textual documentation included synagogues, cemeteries, and ritual objects. The material could not be published. Harburger fled to Palestine in 1933 and took the documents and notes with him. After his death in 1949, his papers went to the Central Archives of the Jewish People in Jerusalem. In 1996, the Franconian Jewish Museum contracted with the Central Archives to publish the material (850 photographs with the corresponding entries and notes, as well as the principles for the inventory from Harburger's manuscript). Information about Harburger's life and work complete the present edition. The three-volume publication represents a unique source for the history of Jews in Bavaria. It is a legacy in a double sense: originally commissioned to preserve the threatened world of the rural Jewish communities at least in documentary form, it is now, after the Nazi pogroms, also a last testimony to a world that has been completely destroyed. [ak/gh]
 
 

Jewish cultural monuments in Bavaria are accessible not only through Harburger's work. Present-day Bavarian historic preservationists have been working on this special task. During the 1980s, lists of all Bavarian monuments classified as historical were compiled in the series Denkmaltopographie Bundesrepublik Deutschland [Topography of Monuments in the Federal Republic of Germany] and published as Denkmäler in Bayern [Monuments in Bavaria]. (For a review of inventories of monuments in Germany see IFB 95-3-403-412.) In the beginning of the 1990s, more differentiated projects were taken up. One of these was the listing and preservation of the remaining objects of Jewish culture. Denkmäler jüdischer Kultur in Bayern reflects this approach. In separate chapters, synagogues in Bavaria, including village synagogues, are documented, and, where possible, aspects of restoration and present-day use are discussed. Included in the volume is a thematic excerpt from the earlier lists of monuments of the seven Bavarian administrative districts. As is characteristic for these lists, it gives only brief information about traces of Jewish cultural history in Bavaria. The foregoing chapters exemplify the completion and deepening of the older brief form of memory support. [ak/gh]
 
 

When the Standing Conference of Ministers for Culture of the German Federal States made the decision in 1996 to register Jewish cultural monuments systematically, North Rhine-Westphalia at least was not unprepared. There was already a plan in place for a comprehensive inventory, a unique project in Germany at that time. Several books had already been published--for example, Wegweiser durch das jüdische Rheinland [Guide to the Jewish Rheinland] (Berlin, 1992) and Handbuch jüdischer Kultur und Geschichte in Nordrhein-Westfalen [Handbook of Jewish Culture and History in North Rhein-Westphalia] (Essen, 1993). Within a period of three years, not only the synagogues, Jewish houses of prayer, and cemeteries were to be located and described, but also the whole spectrum of Jewish culture. The result was to be published in five volumes, corresponding to the state's administrative districts. Elfi Pracht, the compiler, could not keep entirely to the schedule, but the two volumes that have already been published illustrate the scope of the project (the volumes in preparation cover the Düsseldorf, Münster, and Arnsberg administrative districts). They offer an introduction that discusses the preservation of Jewish culture for posterity, the sources used, and the photographic documentation (new photographs were used as much as possible), and summarizes remarks on the investigation, protection, and preservation of Jewish monuments in North Rhine-Westphalia. Specific sections cover the various types of monuments: synagogues and prayer houses, ritual baths, schools and social institutions, homes and businesses of Jewish families, and cemeteries. The actual documentation is divided by counties, then alphabetically by localities. The local entries give a survey of Jewish history in the community, and descriptions of individual monuments by type. A collection of photographs concludes the section for each county. The information offered in this exemplary documentation is not only interesting, but extraordinarily useful for a wide variety of scholarly disciplines. [ak/gh]
 
 

This publication pursues a somewhat different goal. Its focus is a documentation of the destruction of synagogues in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1938, although it is not an encyclopedic "memory book" of all buildings. The sheer number of synagogues listed here, and a map showing the locations of destroyed synagogues and houses of prayer, gives shattering testimony to the extent of the pillage of 1938. Arranged alphabetically by place, the entries give information on the history of the congregation and the place(s) of worship, followed by a careful description of the buildings; historic photos are added. In the second part of the work, scholarly material with data and citations forms in effect a brief inventory. An appendix adds information about synagogues closed before 1938 and the few synagogues that remained undestroyed. The publication aims to reduce "sobering gaps in knowledge" about the pogroms of 1938, and to impart information and serve as a memorial volume at the same time (p. xxvii of the preface). The publication fulfills both goals. By concentrating on synagogues, it also has value as an inventory. Scholars concerned with Jewish culture and its monuments in North Rhine-Westphalia will need to consult both publications discussed here. [ak/gh]
 
 

There are also publications about Jewish cultural monuments in other German federal states. Denkmale jüdischer Kultur in Thüringen [Monuments of Jewish culture in Thuringia] (Bad Homburg; Leipzig, 1997) was discussed in IFB 98-1/2-106.

The Office for Historic Preservation in Saxony-Anhalt has devoted a volume of its Arbeitsberichte [Work Reports] to the synagogues of this state. The introduction asks "Memorial or monument?" and discusses aspects of the use of monuments still standing, their value as source material, and their basic function. The chapters after that are devoted to individual synagogues (preserved and destroyed) and treat in particular questions of structural history, offering a very useful supplement to the accompanying photographs and drawings. The volume ends with a directory of Jewish cultural and historical objects in Saxony-Anhalt, current as of 1997, which is not limited to synagogues, but also includes buildings that had religious or social uses and even monuments to Jewish personalities and victims of the Nazis. Thus this compilation is presently one of the most important sources of information about the Jewish cultural heritage in Saxony-Anhalt.

Those with an interest in synagogue buildings can also be referred to specialized bibliographies, such as Synagogen (Stuttgart, 1994). [ak/gh]
 
 

Since 1937 (interrupted in the period 1945-1948) the Haus der Kunst (House of Art) in Munich has been holding an annual "Great Art Exhibition" to showcase the latest trends in contemporary art. The CD-ROM contains an index to all the catalogs except for 1937 to 1944, and 1999 in an easy-to-install format. Added features are listed in the bibliographical citation above. The catalogs document about 7,000 names; artists whose work is illustrated in the catalogs have an asterisk next to their names. With a little more technical effort and hypertext links, this could have been a truly useful cumulative index of artists, but as it is, the search capacity makes it only marginally more useful than the printed version. [be/hh]
 
 

Over 1,200 artists are presented in this work, their inclusion based on birth or residence of at least a year in the district of Reutlingen, plus such indicators of artistic significance as mention in the scholarly literature, receipt of prizes, and representation in collections. (In addition, room is made for famous "painter-poets," such as Eduard Mörike and Hermann Hesse.) Entries include a biography, along with information about exhibitions, memberships, criticism, location of works, copyright, and writings. Only a handful of the artists found here are well known, and the selection of illustrations, in a series of plates at the end, is not as representative as one would like. [sh/gw]
 
 

This third installment of the Oberösterreichische Künstlerbibliographie offers bibliographical entries from 1986 through 1995, plus additional entries for the decades 1966-75 and 1976-85 (that were covered mainly in the two previous volumes) for 1,917 artists who either were born or worked in the province of Upper Austria. Brief biographical information for each artist is also presented, but unlike the earlier volumes, this one gives only years of birth and death instead of exact dates. At the same time, though, it draws upon a much richer pool of sources than the previous volumes, with greater emphasis on the artistic vis-à-vis the historical literature, and a much larger volume of titles overall. A cumulative volume would have made this bibliography easier to use. [sh/gw]
 
 

Although it was published with the support of the Arbeitskreis für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde (Working Group on Transylvanian Culture) in Heidelberg, which in 1995 issued the first volume (on the Kronstadt district) of its own inventory of Transylvanian monuments (Denkmaltopographie Siebenbürgen), this is a separate work, focused not on geographical areas but on a genre of monument. The author has been involved for many years with the restoration and administration of old Transylvanian church buildings, and is already known for his Kirchenburgen in Siebenbürgen (Leipzig, 1985). Unlike this earlier work, which used only outstanding examples to illuminate the overall history and development of the genre, the Atlas offers the most comprehensive overview yet of all Transylvanian Saxon churches, organized for easy reference. That its introductory chapters do not reflect the high level of scholarship found in the earlier work is regrettable but does not diminish its usefulness.

Entries are arranged alphabetically by German place name, with the corresponding Romanian and Hungarian names given in both the entries and the index. Each entry offers maps, historical information, description of the church building, and references to relevant literature. The second volume provides photographs and other illustrations, following the same order as the text entries. Unfortunately, the photos lack dates and are often too small to impart a sense of a building's current state of repair or possible alteration. Even so, as a comprehensive guide to a cultural heritage facing an uncertain future, this is a work of considerable value to cultural and art historians of the region, as well as to anyone with a personal or family interest in Transylvania. [ak/gw]
 
 

These are the third and fourth volumes in an unnumbered series, the first two volumes of which dealt with Saxony and Brandenburg-Prussia. Their intent is to "convey an understanding of the background, training, personal situation, career highs and lows, daily life, and many-faceted activities" of the master builders of the time in these regions (22 for Thuringia, 52 in the other areas). But because this kind of information is sparse, the emphasis in the volumes lies in presenting the edifices erected by these builders. There are numerous black-and-white photos, unfortunately undated, but of excellent quality, supplemented by drawings. Both volumes contain an introduction that mentions other builders of the region and illustrates some of their constructions. Both also include bibliographies. The volume that covers Hamburg contains an appendix for that city with four indexes of persons who were active there as carpenters, masons, in other building-trade related groups, or as engineers. [sh/nb]
 
 

Taken together, these works may be seen as a continuation of the standard reference for monograms before about 1850, Georg Kaspar Nagler's Monogrammisten from the same publisher. Volume 1 of the Monogrammlexikon is a recent updating of Franz Goldstein's 1964 work covering the post-1850 period, while volume 2 was originally published in 1995 as a supplement to the Goldstein work. Together with the Signaturenlexikon, which limits its scope to 19th- and 20th-century artists, a corpus of roughly 16,300 signatures and some 53,400 monograms has become available. The main part of the Signaturenlexikon displays 22 signatures per page, accompanied by the artist's name and, possibly, a date. The second part, a "biographical index," offers brief additional information: birth and death dates, locations where the artist worked, techniques employed, pseudonyms. A list of sources is also included.

The two volumes of the Monogrammlexikon are organized similarly: 40 monograms are displayed per page, followed by an index of the monograms and a biographical index. Both volumes contain a list of sources.

Compendia of this sort are of interest chiefly to art collectors, and for all their extensiveness, the Signaturenlexikon and Monogrammlexikon do not claim complete coverage. Many signatures and monograms missing from these works can be found in other recent books, such as the Encyclopedia of Artists' Signatures, Symbols and Monograms (Land O'Lakes, Fla., 1999), Signatures & monogrammes d'artistes des XIXe et XXe siècles (Paris, 1998), and Come riconoscere un quadro dell'Ottocento (Milano, 1998). [sh/gw]