AT HAUSVOGTEIPLATZ Something unique emerged in the heart of Berlin in the nineteenth century: a creative centre for fashion and ready-made clothing. The hundreds of clothing companies that were established here manufactured modern clothing and developed new designs that were sold throughout Germany and the world. This industry reached the height of its success in the 1920s. Freed from their corsets, sophisticated women of the time dressed in the "Berlin chic" sold by Valentin Manheimer, Herrmann Gerson, or the Wertheim department stores. After 1933, however, most Jewish clothing industrialists were confronted with hatred and violence. Many of their companies were "Aryanized" while they themselves were robbed, displaced, and murdered. Under new Aryan management, these companies created conservative clothing that represented an entirely different image of women.

Broken Threads tells the story of the destruction of the Jewish fashion industry under the Nazis.Jewish designers were very prominent in the fashion industry of 1930s Germany and Austria. The emergence of Konfektion, or ready-to-wear, and the development of the modern department store, with its innovative merchandising and lavish interior design, only emphasized this prominence. The Nazis came to see German high fashion as too heavily influenced by Jewish designers, manufacturers and merchandisers. These groups were targeted with a campaign of propaganda, boycotts, humiliation and Aryanization.Broken Threads chronicles this moment of cultural loss, detailing the rise of Jewish design and its destruction at the hands of the Nazis. Superbly illustrated with photographs and fashion plates from the collection of Claus Jahnke, Broken Threads explores this little-known part of fashion and of Nazi history.

In her latest book, Life in Citiations: Biblical Narratives and Contemporary Hebrew Culture, Ruth Tsoffar studies several key biblical narratives that figure prominently in Israeli culture. Life in Citations provides a close reading of these narratives, along with works by contemporary Hebrew Israeli artists that respond to them. Together they read as a modern commentary on life with text, or even life under the rule of its verses, to answer questions like How can we explain the fascination and intense identification of Israelis with the Bible? What does it mean to live in such close proximity with the Bible, and What kind of story can such a life tell?

"This former BBC journalist's passionate search for justice is a suspenseful confrontation with World War II history. A fascinating journey." --Anne-Marie O'Connor, national bestselling author of The Lady in GoldDina Gold grew up hearing her grandmother's tales of the glamorous life in Berlin she once led before the Nazis came to power and her dreams of recovering a huge building she claimed belonged to the family - though she had no papers to prove ownership. When the Wall fell in 1989, Dina decided to battle for restitution. Built by Dina's great grandfather in 1910, the property was the business headquarters of the H. Wolff fur company, one of the largest and most successful in Germany during the early part of the last century. In 1937, the Victoria Insurance Company foreclosed on the mortgage and transferred ownership of Krausenstrasse 17/18 to the Reichsbahn, Hitler's railways, that later transported millions of Jews across Europe to the death camps. The Victoria, headed then by a German businessman and lawyer with connections to the very top of the Nazi Party, is still today one of Germany's leading insurance companies. But during the war it was part of a consortium insuring workshops at Auschwitz. When the Third Reich was defeated in 1945 the building lay in the Soviet sector - just past Checkpoint Charlie - and beyond legal reach.

Since becoming the capital of reunited Germany, Berlin has had a dose of global money and international style added to its already impressive cultural veneer. Once home to emperors and dictators, peddlers and spies, it is now a fashion showplace that attracts the young and hip. Moving beyond descriptions of Berlin's fashion industry and its ready-to-wear clothing, Berliner Chic charts the turbulent stories of entrepreneurially-savvy manufacturers and cultural workers striving to establish their city as a fashion capital, and being repeatedly interrupted by politics, ideology, and war. There are many stories to tell about Berlin's fashion industry and Berliner Chic tells them all with considerable expertise.

Focusing on the arcades of 19th-century Paris--glass-roofed rows of shops that were early centers of consumerism--Benjamin presents a montage of quotations from, and reflections on, hundreds of published sources. 46 illustrations.

By employing new 'optics' and a comparative approach, this book helps us recognize the unexpected and unsettling connections between America's 'western' empire and Nazi Germany's 'eastern' empire, linking histories previously thought of as totally unrelated and leading readers towards a deep revisioning of the 'American West' and the 'Nazi East'.