Rabbi Leo Baeck, liberated from Theresienstadt on the day World War II ended, expressed that Jewish life in Germany was irrevocably over. This perspective was shared by many survivors grappling with the Holocaust's horrors. The urgency to commemorate the rich Jewish cultural heritage emerged after 1945, as many wondered about the future of literary and musical contributions from figures like Mendelssohn and Kafka. The Leo Baeck Institute, founded in 1955, aimed to showcase what the Nazis obliterated, highlighting both cultural achievements and the daily lives of German Jews, with Baeck as its first president.
"The era of the Jews in Germany is over once and for all," Baeck said, sharing a sentiment echoed by most survivors upon liberation from Theresienstadt.
"Remembrance was also resistance against forgetting, against erasure," explains historian Doron Rabinovici, highlighting the urgency of preserving Jewish culture post-Holocaust.
The Leo Baeck Institute was founded to 'show what the Nazis had destroyed,' aiming to celebrate both the cultural achievements and the everyday life of German Jews.
Michael Brenner notes that Leo Baeck was the 'great religious and spiritual shining light of liberal German Jewry,' leading efforts to commemorate their heritage.
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