BB - Religion

2007

BB – Religion

Répertoire général des auteurs ecclésiastiques latins de l’antiquité et du haut moyen âge [Catalog of the Latin Church Fathers of Antiquity and the Middle Ages]. Roger Gryson. 5th, rev. ed. of Verzeichnis der Sigel für Kirchenschriftsteller [Catalog of Abbreviations for the Church Fathers] begun by Bonifatius Fischer, continued by Hermann Josef Frede. 2 vols. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2007. 1,085 p. 25 cm. (Vetus latina, 1,1,5). ISBN 978-3-451-00134-5 (Vol. 1): EUR 88; ISBN 978-3-451-00137-6 (Vol. 2): EUR 82 [07-1-051]

This two-volume work represents the 5th edition of the well-known index of authors and texts of the Vetus Latina project, first published in 1949 under the direction of Bonifatius Fischer. It lists editions (both ancient and modern) of the works of the Church Fathers from the early Middle Ages to the 8th century, keyed to the author abbreviations (sigla) used in the Vetus Latina, including anonymous and apocryphal texts. The Répertoire supersedes the 4th edition (published in 1995 under the title Kirchenschriftsteller, Verzeichnis und Sigel) and includes the supplemental fascicles (“Aktualisierungshefte”) issued in 1999 and 2004. These volumes form part of the multi-volume critical edition of the Vetus Latina (still a work in progress) , bringing together all surviving remnants of the Old Latin translations of the Bible from ancient and medieval manuscripts. Since 1998, the project has been under the direction of Roger Gryson of the University of Louvain-la-Neuve, who writes in French. Thus, earlier entries are written in German (by B. Fischer and his successor Hermann Josef Frede), later ones by Gryson in French. Likewise, the German title of the work has been changed to French. In his preface, Gryson points out that the Répertoire is not intended to be an exhaustive bibliography, but rather a selective one of the best and most reliable editions. Comments about each author and individual manuscript are brief, focusing on questions of authenticity and sources used. Although this work is conceived primarily as an aid to using the critical edition of the Vetus Latina, it can serve as an excellent reference work for anyone who works with early Latin texts. [ch/akb]

Corpus Augustinianum Gissense: CAG; die elektronische Edition der Werke des Augustinus von Hippo [...: CAG. The Electronic Edition of the Works of Augustine of Hippo]. Ed. Cornelius Mayer for the Zentrum für Augustinus-Forschung in Würzburg. Version 2.0. Basel: Schwabe, 2005. 1 CD-ROM + user manual (233 p.) ISBN: 978-3-7965-2060-0 (single-use version): EUR 980; ISBN 978-3-7965-2174-4 (networkable CD-ROM, up to 5 users): EUR 1,500 [07-1-052]

Since the first version of this database has already been discussed (see RREA 2:89), this review will be limited to a recapitulation of the most important features of the CAG, currently one of the three best and most complete electronic editions of the works of Saint Augustine available. The other two are the Patrologia Latina Database (Cambridge) and the CETEDOC Library of Christian Latin Texts (Louvain). In the reviewer’s opinion, the CAG is superior to these other two in many ways: (1) The offering of texts is better, particularly in marginal areas and newly discovered works. Where new critical editions of texts are available, they replace older versions. Letters to Augustine have now also been added. (2) The quality of the texts is superior, in terms of the editions used. (3) Each database has its own advantages in terms of the supplementary material offered, but the CAG excels in certain areas: the possibility of searching with the roots of keywords; inclusion of sources used by Augustine, such as citations from the Bible and literature from antiquity; and documentation of quotations from Augustine. As in the CAG 1, there are nine categories of citations, and the search options for these are outstanding, much more refined than in CAG 1. For example, to facilitate searching, the indexes allow one to choose from a list of lemmas or Greek words. (4) The CAG offers better search options because of the more advanced keyword indexing of the works, which the other two databases cannot rival. Access has also been improved by the inclusion of subject categories for searching. (5) Unlike the other databases, CAG 2 provides keyword access to secondary literature (27,000 titles, compared to 20,000 in the CAG 1). An author index and keyword index facilitate searching. (6) The CAG was conceived as an individual work tool and includes the possibility of exporting data.

The new edition of CAG is multilingual, with English, German, French, or Spanish as available languages. The CAG 2 has grown by one-third in size. Technically, there are significant improvements over the CAG 1, updating it to current standards. The newer version is much more user-friendly and intuitive, providing more flexibility and options in terms of navigation, searching, and display of data. It is indispensable for library use. A subscription to the Web-accessible version of the CAG 2 can be purchased from the InteLex Corporation, Charlottesville, VA (http://www.nlx.com/collections/11).

A desirable addition to the CAG would be a digital full-text version of the Augustinus-Lexikon (see RREA 2:85). [ar/akb]

Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil [Herder’s Theological Commentary on the Second Vatican Council]. Ed. Peter Hünermann und Bernd Jochen Hilberath. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. 25 cm.[07-1-053]

Vol. 1. Die Dokumente des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils: Konstitutionen, Dekrete, Erklärungen [The Documents of the Second Vatican Council: Constitutions, Decrees, Explanations]. Ed. Peter Hünermann. Latin-German Study Edition. 2004. xi, 956 p. ISBN 3-451-28530-4: EUR 75

Vol. 2. Sacrosanctum Concilium. Ed. Reiner Kaczynski. Inter mirifica. Ed. Hans-Joachim Sander. Lumen gentium. Ed. Peter Hünermann. 2004. xi, 611 p. ISBN 3-451-28531-2: EUR 65

Vol. 3. Orientalium ecclesiarum. Ed. Bernd Jochen Hilberath. Unitatis redintegratio. Ed. Bernd Jochen Hilberath. 2005. ix, 860 p. ISBN 3-451-28561-4: EUR 75

Vol. 4. Apostolicam actuositatem. Ed. Guido Bausenhart. Dignitatis humanae. Ed. Roman A. Siebenrock. 2005. ix, 916 p. ISBN 3-451-28562-2: EUR 75

Vol. 5. Die Dokumente des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils: theologische Zusammenschau und Perspektiven [The Documents of the Second Vatican Council: Theological Synopsis and Perspectives]. Guido Bausenhart. 2006. xvi, 618 p. ISBN 978-3-451-28563-9: EUR 68

On the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, the Herder Verlag offers a new bilingual collection of the Council documents with commentary, in keeping with their previous work in this area. The three-volume German-Latin edition of the Council texts with commentary that Herder produced in 1966-68 (published as supplementary volumes to the second edition of the Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche) is still the standard edition, and the Kleine Konzilskompendium by Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler appeared in its 33d printing in 2006. Edited by the renowned Tübingen theologians Peter Hünermann and Bernd Jochen Hilberath, the present five-volume work presents a systematic theological commentary that seeks to collect and clarify the results of all the research on the Council, giving proper attention to opposing viewpoints and interpretations. Volume 1 provides a Latin-German study edition of the Council texts, in which the German is a new translation, intentionally conforming closely to the Latin, and thus drawing attention to nuances in the original. The systematic index, based on the Denzinger-Hünermann Kompendium der Glaubensbekenntnisse und kirchlichen Lehrentscheidungen (Freiburg im Breisgau, 2005), is especially helpful in facilitating thematic exploration of the Council documents and showing their relation to Church doctrine. (See the review of the CD-ROM-edition in IFB 98-1/2-074.) Volumes 2-4, edited by an additional seven professors, comment on the Council documents in chronological order. In each case, they provide theological background, clarify the instigation and development of competing drafts, provide interpretation of individual chapters, give a theological-pastoral evaluation of the text in light of its reception history, and provide a selective bibliography of relevant secondary literature. All the commentaries seek to make clear both differences and similarities with pre-conciliar theology and underscore the canonical, ecumenical, and interreligious significance of the texts, as well as discussing implications for social and intellectual aspects of modernity. The final volume concludes by considering aspects of hermeneutics and reception, attempts a theological evaluation of the whole, and discusses the initiatives and unrealized potentialities of the Second Vatican Council. A very important and successful publication, this commentary has special value in demonstrating the diversity of opinion within the Council and will be both an indispensible help in debates on the liturgical reforms and an instigation to further study of the Council. [mbe/ab]

Geschichte des kirchlichen Lebens in den deutschsprachigen Ländern seit dem Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts: die Katholische Kirche [History of Church Life in the German-Speaking Lands since the End of the 18th Century: The Catholic Church]. Ed. Erwin Gatz. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. 25 cm. [07-1-054]

Vol. 7. Klöster und Ordensgemeinschaften [Cloisters and Religious Orders]. 2006. 472 p. ISBN 978-3-451-23669-3: EUR 45

That an entire volume of Erwin Gatz’s Geschichte des kirchlichen Lebens ... is dedicated to cloisters and religious orders, reflects the impact of Western monasticism on both church and culture. Gatz’s introduction gives an overview of the main crossroads for monastic life during this time, emphasizing the development of wide-ranging congregations with motherhouses and branches that outstripped the classical orders in pastoral care, education, and care for the poor and sick. The following chapters trace the general development of German monastic life in the last two centuries, with illustrative examples. Marcel Albert contributes a useful overview of the many orders and their situation on the brink of secularization around 1775-1800. Anja Ostrowitzki describes the anti-monastic climate of the later 18th century leading to the dissolution of monasteries as part of a general modernization that is no longer seen as completely negative. Marcel Albert describes the revival and reorganization of monastic life in the early 19th century. Gisela Fleckenstein describes the consolidation of the orders in the middle of the 19th century through the era of the Kulturkampf, with special attention to the establishment of many new female orders. During the Weimar Republic the orders experienced another dramatic upsurge, congruent with a more general Catholic spiritual revival in Germany, but the Nazi era brought conflict that climaxed in the “storming of the cloisters” in 1941, and the ravages of the Second World War would have long-lasting effects. Gatz describes the time between the War and the Second Vatican Council as a time of transition, marked especially by the lack of new recruits, reflecting the diminished role of the orders in society. Martin Leitgöb describes the post-Vatican II period as a time of renewal, crisis, and transformation. The final chapter, by Gisela Fleckenstein, deals with the problems of identifying and interpreting reliable statistics in this area. The work as a whole provides a very solid, informed, and readable overview of monastic life, both comprehensive and differentiated. A more unified approach to fundamental aspects such as the political-ecumenical background, economic situation, or cultural contributions of the orders would have provided more consistency and balance in presentation among the individual contributions. Nonetheless, this handbook meets the need for a comprehensive overview of monastic life in this period and will be the standard work for many years. [mbe/ab]

Territorialkirchengeschichte: Handbuch für Landeskirchen und Diözesangeschichte [Regional Church History: Handbook for Regional and Diocesan Church History]. Ed. Dietrich Blaufuss and Thomas Scharf-Wrede. Neustadt an der Aisch: Degener, 2005. xix, 357 p. 25 cm. maps. (Veröffentlichungen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Archive und Bibliotheken in der Evangelischen Kirche, 26). Previous title: Handbuch deutsche Landeskirchengeschichte [Handbook of German Regional Church History]. ISBN 3-7686-4225-9: EUR 29.90 [07-1-055]

The desire for an “improved second edition … of this … extremely useful handbook” expressed in a review of the earlier edition (see RREA 6:280) has now been fulfilled in part. The volume registers an additional five Protestant and fourteen Catholic regional historical societies beyond the twenty-two (limited to Protestant societies only) included in the earlier title. An introductory survey explaining the geographical region for which each of the societies is responsible would have been desirable, since the names of the societies alone do not always make this clear.

The entries on the 41 societies, for which the individual societies themselves are responsible, display considerable deviation in both the amount and type of information presented. This may include a society’s founding, areas of interest, goals, projects, publishing activity, organization, meetings, statistics, etc. The amount of information presented on significant individual members of societies varies from brief biobibliographical information to nothing at all. Lists of publications vary from thorough to lacking completely.

Perhaps a future expanded and updated edition will be able to achieve greater consistency. However, as a specialized reference work, the volume still offers an indispensable resource. [sh/rc]

Ökumene im Dritten Reich [The Ecumenical Movement in the Third Reich]. Jörg Ernesti. Paderborn: Bonifatius, 2007. 411, 24 p. (Konfessionskundliche und kontroverstheologische Studien, 77). Dr. phil. diss., Universität Paderborn, 2007. ISBN 978-3-89710-367-2: EUR 49.90 [07-1-056]

Jörg Ernesti, lecturer on the faculty of Catholic theology at the University of Mainz, here publishes his dissertation originally submitted to the Department of Ecumenical Theology in the University of Paderborn. The dissertation was written under the aegis of the Johann-Adam-Möhler-Institut für Ökumenik [Johann Adam Möhler Institute for Ecumenism] in Paderborn, directed by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Thönissen. This wellbalanced and excellently documented investigation treats the ecumenical activities of the Protestant and Catholic churches during the Third Reich and what role the Nazi state might have played in them. Ernesti makes clear that ecumenicity was a primary concern both on the part of individuals and of the churches at large, which established ecumenical institutes and professorships. It is also clear that neither church determined under what conditions they would be able to reunite. Instead, they concentrated on establishing both the commonalities and differences between them.

Ernesti’s book is an historical account, source collection, and reader all at once. Important documents and letters, drawn from a great variety of archives, are located at the end of individual chapters. The author portrays a many-layered panorama of various ecumenical activities. He demonstrates that supporters of ecumenism included significant theologians and churchmen, especially on the Catholic side. A bibliography and 1,164 footnotes offer stimuli to further reading and research. The author has produced a work of fundamental importance. [frh/rc]

Le diocesi d’Italia [The Dioceses of Italy]. Ed. Luigi Mezzadri, Maurizio Tagliaferri, and Elio Guerriero. Cinisello Balsamo (Milano): San Paolo. ill. maps. 25 cm. (I dizionari San Paolo).

Vol. 1. Le regioni ecclesiastiche [The Ecclesiastical Regions]. 2007. c, 310 p. (I dizionari San Paolo). ISBN 9788821559310: EUR 65

Vol. 2. A-L. 2008. xix, 663 p. (I dizionari San Paolo). ISBN 9788821561627: EUR 90

Vol. 3. M-Z. 2008. vii, 666-1433 p. (I dizionari San Paolo). ISBN 9788821561726: EUR 95

An RREA Original Review by Rebecca R. Malek-Wiley (Tulane University)

This three-volume dictionary on the dioceses of the Catholic Church in Italy compiles information by over 250 contributors on their history as well as their current status. It consists of brief articles, tables with summaries of principal geographical and administrative data, and numerous maps. The geographic scope intentionally includes some areas not currently in Italy that were historically part of the country at its establishment in 1861, such as Istria and Dalmatia; on the other hand, it does not include Corsica or the Italian colonies in the Aegean or Africa.

Volume 1 begins with an introduction on the publication’s background, organization, and scope, followed by lists of contributors and abbreviations, then an extensive general bibliography. The main text is organized geographically by ecclesiastical region. Each section provides a map of the region; statistics for its area (in square km.), population, number of parishes, secular and regular priests, and deacons; an alphabetical list of dioceses; a summary of the hierarchy of seats within the diocese; a historical summary, often several pages long, from the origins of Christianity in that region to recent decades; and a section bibliography. There are some photographs of the metropolitan cathedrals. There are then briefer sections on the history and current structure of the dioceses of the Italian military orders and on Italian episcopal conferences. The volume ends with a glossary and lists of dioceses, current, historical, or titular; a brief annotation on each historical diocese specifies the diocese that it merged into or states simply that it is defunct (“scomparsa”). Some cross-references are included (e.g., from “Pordenone, Triveneto” to “Concordia-Pordenone”).

Volumes 2 and 3 consist of descriptions of each individual diocese, arranged alphabetically, following a list of the contributors to these volumes and maps showing diocese locations. For each one (identified with both its Italian and Latin names), the section covers the ecclesiastical region and province in which it is located; the century of its foundation or first attestation; history; the name of its cathedral; patron saint; significant religious sites; size; population; number of parishes; a map showing all parishes; and an individual bibliography. Occasional line drawings of sculptures, sculptural motifs, and other decorative elements appear.

The numerous and extensive bibliographies are a welcome feature of this dictionary. One limitation, however, is the lack of indexes in the last two volumes. The list of dioceses at the end of the first volume is the closest to an index that the set has, so in practice one must be prepared to consult it to use the other volumes fully. Despite this caveat, the set can be recommended as a rich mine of detailed and fairly up-to-date information, not otherwise easily found in one place, of value for historians of Italy and of the Catholic Church as well as for those doing research on contemporary Italy.

Die Ausgrenzung der Juden in der Tagespresse des Dritten Reiches (1933-1941): Eine Dokumentation [The Exclusion of Jews in the Daily Press of the Third Reich (1933-1941): A Documentary Report]. Wolfhard Buchholz. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2007. 240 p. 21cm. ISBN 978-3-631-55785-3: EUR 39.80 [07-1-057]

This documentary work aims to show what a “normal citizen” in the Third Reich could read in the daily press about the exclusion of Jews. The author analyzed four newspapers for the period from January 30, 1933 through December 31, 1941: (1) the Völkische Beobachter (North German edition, Berlin), a party organ, (2) the Frankfurter Zeitung, a national newspaper, (3) the Düsseldorfter Nachrichten, a city newspaper, and (4) the Aller-Zeitung (Gifhorn), a rural newspaper. As none of the newspapers reported the deportation of Jews to concentration camps that began in October 1941, the selection of analyzed texts ends at the close of that year. The text selections are organized into four topical sections, followed by a table of abbreviations, a one-page bibliography and a chronology. Behind dry-sounding chapter titles lie such dramatic events as the anti-Jewish boycotts; the gradual exclusion of Jews from nearly all areas of business, the legal profession, the armed forces, the educational and health care systems; the race laws with their infamous division between citizens of the nation and citizens of the state, which by stealth robbed Jews of their legal status; and the promulgation of rules making the term “Rassenschande” (racial defilement) a legally actionable term. The events are infamous; Buchholz shows clearly that that they were continuously and thoroughly reported in the contemporary daily press.

The volume includes no reproductions of images to illustrate instances of persecution. Other works, for example Heinz Bergschicker’s Deutsche Chronik 1933-1945: ein Zeitbild der faschistischen Diktatur [German Chronicle 1933-1945: A Snapshot of the Fascist Dictatorship] (Berlin, 1980), contains many (undocumented, contrary to GDR practice) images that must have been published in the daily press from that time. It would also have been interesting if the author had looked at Austrian publications, to see if they merely reproduced the press of the “Old Reich” or made divergent commentary–if for no other reason than that Germans did have access to that material either directly or via Austrian radio, at least until the onset of the war. Finally, there were plenty of less-frequent popular periodicals available to Germans that could have been analyzed as well and would add depth to Buchholz’ work. Nonetheless, this anthology contains an important documentation of the history of everyday life during the Third Reich. [frh/rb]

Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945 [The Persecution and Murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany, 1933-1945]. Ed. Götz Aly, for the German Bundesarchiv. München: Oldenbourg. 25 cm. [07-2-341]

Vol. 1. Deutsches Reich 1933-1937> [The German Reich 1933-1937]. Ed. Wolf Gruner. 2008. 811 p. ill. ISBN 978-3-486-58480-6: EUR 59.80

This ambitious 16-volume VEJ documentary resource, sponsored by the German Federal Archive, the (Freiburg) Albert-Ludwig University’s Institute for Contemporary History, and its Chair in Contemporary History, is intended as a written memorial to the six million persecuted and murdered Jews of Europe. The volumes will appear over a period of ten years. They will cover Germany and the Bohemia-Moravia Protectorate (five volumes), Poland (three), Western and Northern Europe (two), the Soviet Union and its occupied territories (two), Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria (in one), and one each for Southeastern Europe, Hungary, and the Auschwitz concentration camp and the subsequent death marches (1942-1945).

The edition will be a thematically comprehensive, scholarly-based sourcebook of written documents, including transcriptions of sound recordings from the 1933-45 period of German tyranny. Photographs have not been included because, while they document events, they do not explain developments of or motives for decisions and actions. The editors have arranged the materials in chronological order, but they avoid a one-after-the-other narrative. They show the broad spectrum of Nazi Jewish policies’ overall impact, while at the same time give special attention to persecuted Jews’ private letters, diary entries, and cries for help. Only in this way can the motives and behaviors of the perpetrators be made recognizable.

The first volume contains 320 documents from January 1933 through December 1937. They cover specific laws (such as the Nuremberg race laws of 1935), executive orders, official correspondence, and court decisions, alongside press articles (from the Jewish press as well as the Nazi hate-sheet, Der Stürmer). Especially moving are not only the testimonies about Jewish daily life (diaries, letters and similar sources, as well as awkward denunciations of “Aryan” Germans), but also the cool, official means of gradually depriving Jews of all legal status and the countless petty everyday actions that over time drove the Jews into social isolation. As the Berlin Rabbi Joachim Prinz wrote in 1935, “The Jews’ fate [Los] is to be neighbor-less [-los].”

Each document also has a brief description and citation of its source and of any errors. The volume begins with an introduction by the editor, which briefly presents the history of the Jews to 1933 and then discusses the methods and results of Nazi anti-Semitism. A chronological index of the documents and three further indexes (institutions, firms, and newspapers; places; and persons) conclude the volume. Fifty-two domestic and foreign archives are listed as sources.

Volume 1 appeared on 27 January 2008, the Day of Holocaust Remembrance, in the Jewish Museum in Berlin, with Federal President Horst Köhler in attendance and widely covered by the media. One hopes that this work will progress rapidly and come to completion within that ten-year goal. [jli/ga]

Bibliographie zur deutsch-jüdischen Familienforschung und zur neueren Regional- und Lokalgeschichte der Juden = Bibliography on German-Jewish Family Research and on Recent Regional and Local History of the Jews. Angelika G. Ellmann-Krüger and Dietrich Ellmann. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006. 1 CD-ROM. ISBN 978-3-447-05447-8: EUR 49.80 [07-2-342]

The 2,596-title selective bibliography on the research of German-Jewish family and local history published in 1992 (see IFB 95-3-367) has now been expanded to 32,000 titles (about 11,000 of them annotated) and issued in CD-ROM format. The updated version is much better organized (classified into 22 main groups rather than alphabetically), includes numerous indexes (name, place, subject, keyword, author) and is fully searchable. The homepage offers users the choice of an English or German interface. In spite of the enlarged scope and high quality of this revision, genealogists and historians of German-Jewish history will still need to use other relevant bibliographies: a comparison with the 12,515-title Judaica bavarica (see RREA 13:79) showed many listings–and not only of older works–not included in the bibliography under review. [sh/sl]

Judaica bavarica: neue Bibliographie zur Geschichte der Juden in Bayern [Judaica Bavarica: A New Bibliography on the History of the Jews in Bavaria]. Falk Wiesemann. Essen: Klartext-Verlag, 2007. 1022 p. 25 cm. ISBN 978-3-89861-654-6: EUR 129 [07-2-343]

This work first appeared 1989 under the title Bibliographie zur Geschichte der Juden in Bayern (see RREO 95-3-370), the first volume in the series Bibliographien zur deutschjüdischen Geschichte. (Several other volumes are also covered in RREO 95; the series ceased with volume 7 in 2004).

The 2007 revision expands the number of monographs and essays covered from 2,913 in the earlier version to 12,515, over half of which are older titles not included in 1989 volume. It is organized topically into 27 chapters, the longest (4,869 entries) devoted to local histories. For the other chapters, users need to consult the index of places in order to zero in on specific localities. The bibliographic descriptions are adequate, although neither number of pages nor an indication of series is given for monographs. Annotations are provided when necessary to augment the title with specific Jewish and/or Bavarianrelated content. There are four indexes: name, place, subject, and author. In spite of a strong interest in Jewish local and regional history, it is, unfortunately, unlikely that comparable bibliographies will be published for the other German federal states. [sh/sl]

Berliner Juden 1941: Namen und Schicksale; das letzte amtliche Fernsprechbuch der Reichspostdirektion [Berlin Jews 1941: Names and Fates. The Last Official Telephone Book from the German Reich Postal Service]. Ed. Hartmut Jäckel and Hermann Simon. Teetz: Hentrich & Hentrich, 2007. 157 p. ill. 25 cm. (Schriftenreihe des Centrum Judaicum, 4). ISBN 978-3-938485-42-2: EUR 22 [07-2-344]

The importance of telephone books as primary sources cannot be exaggerated. The present volume publishes 520 listings of Jewish households found in the Official Telephone book for Berlin that appeared in June 1941. This number stands in sharp contrast to approximately 160,000 Germans of Jewish descent who lived in Berlin in 1933. The listings of Jews are easy to identify because a 1938 Ministry of the Interior circular required that every Jewish citizen add “Israel” or “Sara” to his or her first name.

The telephone book for the previous year, 1940, contained over 5,000 listings of Jews. The tenfold drop that occurred in the space of one year was the consequence of a Postal Ministry degree of 1940 that mandated the cancellation of telephone service for Jews and the confiscation of their phones.

The entries collected in this book are supplemented by other helpful data. These include the names with the compulsory additions removed, the date and place of birth, the university, major field of study, date of graduation, and career. Information about the person’s further destiny is provided when available. Most commonly, it was deportation to death camps, suicide or, in rarer cases, emigration. Copies of photographs and other documents complement many entries.

The editors, Hartmut Jäckel and Hermann Simon, have individually published other related materials, including the 1994 Jüdisches Adressbuch für Gross-Berlin, Ausgabe 1931 [Jewish Directory for Greater Berlin, 1931 Edition] (see RREO 95-3-364) and the 2000 Menschen in Berlin: das letzte Telefonbuch der alten Reichshauptstadt 1941 (see RREA 7:293). [sh/as]

Sie halfen Juden: schwäbische Pfarrhäuser im Widerstand [They Helped Jews: Swabian Vicarages in Resistance]. Peter Haigis. Stuttgart: Evangelische Gemeindepresse, 2007. 223 p. 22 cm. ISBN 978-3920207-18-6: EUR 19.90 [07-1-058]

Peter Haigis is a pastor, researcher and journalist. All three professions add value to his work. He can create a suspenseful narrative, bring order to great volumes of material, and incorporate important research into an integrated whole. The subject of his latest book is both touching and oppressive. Haigis follows two Jewish couples, Hermann and Herta Pineas, and Max and Karoline (Ines) Krakauer, as examples of the fate of German Jews in the Third Reich. Pineas was a doctor, Krakauer a filmmaker. Both couples attempted to escape Nazi persecution by going underground. Given that the Krakauers lived in over fifty different places in less than three years, they needed to rely on an army of silent helpers. These they found mainly among the vicarages of Württemberg, which are the focus of this book. Pastor Theodor Dipper of Reichenbach/Fils and several of his pastor colleagues formed a “ring of brotherhood” to organize help for underground Jews. We learn not only of the pastors, but also the various church women (pastors’ wives, secretaries, deaconesses) who often did the work of pastors who were absent due to military service, detention, arrest, or defrocking. While following the two couples, Haigis also chronicles the playing out of the Kirchenkampf, the church-state struggle in Nazi Germany and the related intra-church struggle between the German Protestant Church and the Confessing Church, in the state of Württemberg, where some 700 pastors refused to take the loyalty oath to Hitler and the National Socialist state.

Haigis’ historical sources are mainly parish histories, accounts by individuals involved, and the biographical accounts of the two Jewish couples, including Max Krakauer’s autobiography Lichter im Dunkel [Lights in the Darkness] (Stuttgart, 2007) and the part of Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland: Zeugnisse zur Sozialgeschichte [Jewish Life in Germany: Witnesses to Social History] (Stuttgart, 1982) dealing with the Pineas couple.

The bibliography is very good; unfortunately, there is only a geographical index, not an index of names, which can make it harder to track down individuals. Nonetheless, this work makes an important contribution to the history of the Protestant Church in Württemberg, and also establishes for posterity the names of the victims and their helpers. [frh/rb]

Jüdisches Leben in Leipzig: gestern-heute-morgen; ein Literatur- und Bestandsverzeichnis der Rolf-Kralovitz-Bibliothek der Ephraim-Carlebach-Stiftung Leipzig [Jewish Life in Leipzig: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. A Bibliography and Catalog of the Rolf Kralovitz Library of the Ephraim Carlebach Foundation, Leipzig]. Ed. Heike Kirchhof, Rolf Kralovitz, and Brigitte Kralovitz. Leipzig: Passage-Verlag, 2006. 176 p. 21cm. ISBN 3-938543-29-9: EUR 9.80 [07-1-059]

Ephraim Carlebach (1879-1936) was one of the most significant personalities in the history of the Jewish population of Leipzig. The foundation named for him houses a library named for the foundation’s president, Rolf Kralovitz. Kralovitz was born in 1925 in Leipzig and was awarded a medal of honor by the city in 2005. The library contained, at the time this work was published, some 1,300 items (books, essays, even copies of Web pages) on Jewish life in general and Leipzig’s Jewish community in particular. The catalog, organized by subject, is most valuable for its longest sections, those on “Jewish Life in Saxony” and “Jewish Life in Leipzig,” and its biographical section on “Jewish Persons and Families, and Persons of Jewish Heritage, Who Worked and Work in and for Leipzig.” The latter section includes over 80 short biographies of people and families, cross-listed with relevant items in the library’s collections. Had the editors had access to the 2006 Bausteine einer jüdischen Geschichte der Universität Leipzig [Building Blocks of a Jewish History of the University of Leipzig] (see IFB 07-1-194), this biographical section could easily have become even longer. There are also chapters outlining the library’s collections on Jews and Judaism, the history of the Jewish people, and Jewish Leipzig in novels and film. [sh/rb]

Die Synagogen der Schweiz: Bauten zwischen Emanzipation, Assimilation und Akkulturation [The Synagogues of Switzerland: Buildings between Emancipation, Assimilation, and Acculturation]. Ron Epstein-Mil, photos by Michael Richter. Zürich: Chronos-Verlag, 2008. 261 p. ill. 33 cm. (Beiträge zur Geschichte und Kultur der Juden in der Schweiz, 13). Dr. phil. diss., Universität Basel, 2007. ISBN 978-3-0340-0900-3: SFr 78, EUR 47.20 [07-2-350]

Given the author’s academic and professional background as an architect, one might assume that this volume would describe only the architecture of the Swiss synagogues. However, while prominently discussing architecture (architects, project development, models), the author also addresses the social context of his subject matter. For example, he devotes attention to the buildings’ dedications, which are often well documented with published speeches that “shed light on the emancipatory intentions connected with the building of the houses of worship [and] which were directed primarily at the non-Jewish public invited to the ceremonies” (p. 15).

The author skips over the medieval synagogues of Switzerland, which are examined thoroughly in Simon Paulus’ Die Architektur der Synagoge im Mittelalter [The Architecture of Synagogues in the Middle Ages] (Petersberg, 2007) and concentrates on 23 synagogues built or rebuilt since the mid-18th century. All but two of them are city buildings constructed between 1859 and 1972. The Association for the Preservation of the Synagogues and the Cemeteries of Endingen-Lengnau has documented further information on the two village synagogues, in Lengnau and Endlingen, in Anna Rapp Buri’s Jüdisches Kulturgut in und aus Endingen und Lengnau [Jewish Cultural Property in and from …] (Heidelberg; Basel, 2008). In contrast to synagogues in Germany and other neighboring countries, most of these houses of worship survive today; perhaps partly for this reason, there has been little commemorative work done on them within the Swiss cantons.

Because of the unevenness of source material and availability, some articles on the individual synagogues are more informative than others. The author has done good scholarly work to find and analyze not only the academic literature but also news reports in the Jewish and non-Jewish press. He has reproduced many illustrations, including paintings, historical photographs, aerial photos, sketches, inside and outside views, and official documents. There is a 55-page section on general architectural aspects of Swiss synagogues, also richly illustrated, along with an appendix with a list of libraries and archives. [sh/rb]

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