It is a snapshot: in May 1937 the third class of the Jewish Volksschule in Herzog-Rudolf-Straße in Munich gathers for a class photograph. Starting from this photograph, the recently published book Klassenfoto 1937 (Verlag C.H.Beck, 2026) develops a multi-voiced collective biography of all the children who can be seen in it. Drawing on diaries, memoirs and interviews, it makes visible how diverse Jewish life worlds in Germany were before National Socialism and how radically they were destroyed. From a single photograph there unfolds a panorama of a generation between childlike innocence, brutal persecution, flight and cautious new beginnings – always connected with the question: What lessons do we draw from history?
As part of the book presentation, actress Sofie Gross reads from original sources and quotations.