Intertwined memories? Traces of the Shoah and Colonialism in the Berlin Palace and the Ethnological Collections 

In collaborative workshops and guided tours, adults and schoolchildren are shown examples of Jewish and post-colonial entanglements that can be found in the exhibitions or the reconstructed architecture of the Humboldt Forum and have left traces in the form of cultural belongings, biographies, places and photographs: E.g. The sculpture of the Cameroonian Queen Mother Naya, for example, was presented as early as 1933 in a National Socialist propaganda show for the reclamation of “living space” in the former colonies. It came into the collection through looting by the colonial officer von Putlitz in 1905. Institutional and biographical traces linked to the specific history of the site, such as the racial hygienist Eugen Fischer, who as a senator of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society based in the Berlin Palace pursued racist and anti-Semitic science, are also the subject of the discussion. At the heart of the project is the question of how the recognition of difference can be translated into a social memory that promotes empathy and solidarity and leaves room for pluralistic Jewish and post-colonial voices of the present.