Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts its Nazi Past A Graphic History

Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past is a new title in OUP's Graphic History Series that chronicles the events of the Holocaust and its aftermath in a small village in rural Germany. Based on meticulous research and using powerful visual storytelling, the book provides a multilayered narrative that explores the experiences of both Jewish and non-Jewish villagers from the First World War to the present. Its focus on how "ordinary" people experienced this time offers a new and illuminating insight into everyday life and the processes of violence, rupture, and reconciliation that characterized the history of the twentieth century in Germany and beyond. The graphic narrative is accompanied by source documents published in English translation for the first time, an essay on the wider historical context, and an incisive reflection on the writing of this book--and of history more broadly.

Stefanie Fischer holds a Ph.D. from Technische Universität Berlin. She is currently a faculty member at the Center for Antisemitism Research at Technische Universität Berlin. Her fields of scholarly research are German-Jewish history and Holocaust Studies. Fischer is the author of Jewish Cattle Traders in the German Countryside, 1919-1939: Economic Trust and Antisemitic Violence (2024) and has published numerous articles on German-Jewish history and culture.

Kim Wünschmann is Director of the Institute for the History of the German Jews in Hamburg. She obtained her Ph.D. from Birkbeck, University of London. Her research centers on German-Jewish history, Holocaust Studies, and legal history. She is the author of Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps (2015) and co-editor of Living the German Revolution 1918-19: Expectations, Experiences, Responses (2023).

Liz Clarke is a professional illustrator based in Cape Town, South Africa. She has contributed to a variety of graphic history publications, including several titles in the Graphic History Series published by Oxford University Press.

List of Maps, Tables, and Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors and the Illustrator

Part I: The Graphic History
Chapter 1: Oberbrechen
Chapter 2: Nazi Persecution
Chapter 3: War, Holocaust, and Rescue
Chapter 4: Justice?
Chapter 5: The Orange Book
Chapter 6: Epilogue

Part II: The Sources
Document 1: Letter from an Unknown Relative to Herman Stern in Valley City, North Dakota, July 24, 1933
Document 2: Letter from Dora and Moses Stern, Oberbrechen, to Herman Stern in Valley City, North Dakota, December 31, 1933
Document 3: Letter from Ilse Stern, [New York], to Herman Stern in Valley City, North Dakota, March 15, 1939
Document 4: Letter from Herman Stern, Valley City, North Dakota, to James S. Milloy in Washington, DC, January 15, 1941
Document 5: Letter from Herman Stern, Valley City, North Dakota, to Ruth Harrison, Office of James S. Milloy in Washington, DC, March 19, 1941
Document 6: Letter from Herman Stern, Valley City, North Dakota, to US Secretary of State Cordell Hull in Washington, DC, August 27, 1941
Document 7: Eugen Caspary, Diary Entry, November 16, 1944
Document 8: Carl Reifert, Entry in the Oberbrechen School Chronicle Detailing Events in 1945, undated.
Document 9: Father Alois Kunz, Statement in the Denazification Case of Former Oberbrechen Mayor Hugo Trost, Oberbrechen, April 29, 1948
Document 10: Letter from Franz Pabst, Flörsheim am Main, to the Denazification Board in Limburg, May 22, 1948
Document 11: Letter from Kurt Stern, New York, to the Denazification Board in Limburg, July 12, 1948.
Document 12: Letter from Albert Schmidt, Oberbrechen, to Herman Stern in Valley City, North Dakota, July 20, 1948
Document 13: Minutes of the Public Session of the Appeals Court in Wiesbaden, Reviewing the Decision of the Denazification Board in Limburg, December 13, 1949
Document 14: Irene Lenkiewicz, née Lichtenstein, Account of Her Life under Nazi Persecution and in Exile, Composed in Córdoba, Argentina, November 25, 1958
Document 15: Letter from Carl Reifert to the Compensation Office in Wiesbaden, May 3, 1960
Document 16: Letter from the Compensation Office, Wiesbaden, to Gertrud Marx in Oberbrechen, June 16, 1961
Document 17: Letter from Gertrud Marx, Oberbrechen, to the Compensation Office in Wiesbaden, July 1, 1961
Document 18: Letter from Mayor Josef Keuler, Oberbrechen, to the Wiesbaden District Administrator, June 26, 1961
Document 19: Medical Opinion from Neurology Specialists for Selma Altman, The Hacker Clinic, Beverly Hills, California, March 1966
Document 20: Letter from Selma Altman, Los Angeles, to Mayor Josef Kramm in Oberbrechen, November 26, 1973
Document 21: Letter from Eugen Caspary, Niederselters, to Herman Stern in Valley City, North Dakota, July 7, 1974
Document 22: Letter from Gustave and Gertrude Stern, Seattle, to Eugen Caspary in Niederselters, July 11, 1974
Document 23: Letter from Gustave Stern, Seattle, to Mayor Josef Kramm in Oberbrechen, August 1, 1974
Document 24: Letter from Gustave Stern, Seattle, to Eugen Caspary, Niederselters, September 28, 1974
Document 25: Eugen Caspary, "Jewish Citizens in Oberbrechen, 1711-1942: A Survey," 1975
Document 26: Nassauische Landeszeitung, Report on Kurt Lichtenstein's First Postwar Visit to Oberbrechen, April 24, 1978
Document 27: Christmas Greetings from Selma Altman, Los Angeles, to Mayor Josef Kramm in Oberbrechen, December 1980
Document 28: Provisional Minutes of a Meeting on "Catholic Resistance Against the Hitler Youth and the Repercussions of the National Socialist Seizure of Power in Oberbrechen," July 30, 1984
Document 29: Nassauische Neue Presse, Report on Kurt Lichtenstein's Visit to Oberbrechen, November 29, 1986
Document 30: Letter from Eugen Caspary, Camberg-Erbach, to Kim Wünschmann in Jerusalem, July 3, 2013

Part III: The Historical Context
1. Oberbrechen
2. Nazi Persecution
3. War, Holocaust, and Rescue
4. Justice?
5. The "Orange Book," or Local Attempts of Vergangenheitsbewältigung

Part IV: The Making of Oberbrechen
The Research Process
Reflections on Methodology
Using the Graphic History Medium

Essay Questions
Timeline
Bibliography
Family Trees