‘People & Places: Hamburg’s Jewish History’

Jews have been living in Hamburg for over 400 years. They come from different backgrounds, some are secular, others religious; some are middle class, others working class; they trade, manufacture, conduct research, and create art and culture. The exhibition ‘People & Places: Hamburg’s Jewish History’ illustrates this at iconic locations across Hamburg. Individuals, families, groups, institutions, or even architecture meet in the harbor and the Kontorhaus district, in the Warburg Library, but also in cemeteries and synagogues, in upper-class salons and craft workshops, at the office for ‘Reparations,’ and on contemporary cultural stages.

The exhibition looks at Hamburg through the prism of Jewish history and aims to highlight the diversity of Jewish communities, generations, experiences, and backgrounds, as well as the often complex relationships with different environments. The exhibition focuses on questions about the formation and attribution of identities, belonging and exclusion, and asks how Jewish realities in history and the present have been shaped by political, social, and cultural contexts. In addition to historical objects, photographic documents, artistic works, and multimedia formats, an interview project with Jewish residents of Hamburg gives voice to different generations and experiences.

How do we write the history of the Jewish community in Hamburg? How do museums and exhibitions approach the subject of Judaism, and how can they be relevant to both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences? What research discourses underpin museum representations, and how do these relate to the current dynamics of Jewish life or, more specifically, to urban spaces? These and many other questions have been the subject of intensive debate in recent years. In a series of workshops, experts from the Institute for the History of the German Jews (IGdJ), the Jewish Girls' School Memorial and Education Site (Israelitische Töchterschule) and the Foundation of Hamburg Memorials and Learning Centres assisted the Hamburg Historical Museums Foundation in producing the exhibition. The exhibition catalogue contains contributions from researchers at the IGdJ such as Dr. Karen Körber, Dr. Björn Siegel and Dr. Kim Wünschmann. The exhibition’s team of curators include Anne Kunhardt M.A. and Jonas Stier M.A.

In February 2026, the project space ‘Landmarks of Jewish History: A Project Space for Hamburg’ opened at the Altonaer Museum, which continues to invite Hamburg’s urban community to engage in dialogue about the content, perspectives and remit of a future Jewish Museum. In doing so, it takes up the discussion that has regained relevance since 2024 and looks back on over a century of engagement with questions of how to represent Jewish life in museums.

Images: SHMH; Jonas Stier