The Yekkes (48" x 36")

The Yekkes"Yekkes" is the Yiddish name for German Jews.

Artist's Comment

We have lived here in believing
What we were taught:

That things consist in their consistency
And we have built on this foundation

A castle of playing cards
With the appearance of appearances
With shadows of shadows

Miguel de Unamuno

German Jews had lived for hundreds of years in Germany, making tremendous contributions to Germany's science, industry, economy and the arts. During the First World War they had fought valiantly for "Their Vaterland", many decorated with the coveted Iron Cross First Class. Yet from one day to another they were deprived of their nationality and citizenship.

Docent Guide

Yekkes is a term describing Jews who adopted fully snobbish German Jewish culture values. They were contemptuous of those they call Ostjuden, small-town (shtetl) Jews from Eastern Europe. However, German Jews, who were highly assimilated into German society, found themselves being identified by racial laws in the 1930s, culminating in the Law for the Protection of German Honor of September 15, 1935. This law defined a Jew as anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents, irrespective of their current religious affiliation. Thus, there were few ways to escape being Jewish, even through conversion to Christianity.

In this painting, Hirschberger 's interpretation is enigmatic. A presumption might be that the woman on the right is Jewish and the man on the left is German. The light embrace suggests the positive attitude of German Jews toward assimilation, while the coldness of the male figure and white teeth suggests both abandonment and hostility. The spider's web being woven above both suggest that assimilation for the German Jews was a trap. A poem by Miguel de Unamuno suggests the dilemma:

After the rise of the Nazis to power in 1933, even Jewish men who had served in the Imperial German Army of World War I were accused of illegally earning medals and were given only a temporary respite from deportation.