Fake Jews

Venue: Box - In 1995, Suhrkamp published a volume with memoirs of a Latvian Holocaust survivor. The publication has received numerous awards and is well discussed as a moving contemporary document. Until just three years later, a Swiss-Jewish journalist reveals that the author of this alleged memoir is neither a Jew nor has he ever been affected by the National Socialist terror, but writes from an imaginary perspective, meaning that he has only made up his Jewish biography.

However, this appropriation of a Jewish victim biography is by no means an isolated case, and what is subsequently described as the “Wilkomirski syndrome” based on the fictional biography of Binjamin Wilkomirski has been booming since the Second World War. Particularly in the land of perpetrators and family stories that have not been comprehensively addressed, there are numerous figures who expect an advantage by claiming a biography of persecution, including a well-known blogger, a long-standing chairman of a Jewish community near Hamburg or an influential journalist.

In a time when one's own identity is becoming increasingly important for the visibility and relevance of a statement, certain biographies are becoming a privilege: Is the acquisition of Jewish identity therefore a career advantage? A selling point? Or is it rather not checked too carefully whether what has been claimed is true if it is so historically sensitive? Noam Brusilovsky explores these questions in a monologue project and highlights the blind spots of German remembrance culture in an increasingly polarizing present.