Deutsche Archäologen und Archäologie am Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs und in der Nachkriegszeit

Erlebnisberichte an eine Emigrantin

Abstract

Soon after the end of World War II four professors of Classical Archaeology at German universities tried to restore contact with a colleage and long-time friend emigrated to the USA. Friedrich Matz (Marburg), Hans Möbius (Würzburg), Ernst Langlotz (Bonn), and Bernhard Schweitzer (Leipzig) therefore wrote to Elisabeth Jastrow (1890–1981), who had left her native Germany when the racial laws of the Nazis forced her to break off her academic career because of her Jewish origin. In nine letters published here in full length together with a CV written by Jastrow herself from the E. Jastrow Papers at the Getty Resarch Institute in Los Angeles and provided with commentaries, the former colleagues reported on their personal circumstances as well as on the fate of their institutions during wartime and afterwards between 1945 and 1948. Contrary to the expectations of the German friends Jastrow did not answer their letters. She sent food packages that were gratefully accepted. Only years later was Jastrow ready for personal contacts again. The letters and commentaries give insights into the problems of German scholars in the post-war period: Reconstruction of the institutions, search for international contacts, dealing with the Nazi past, position on emigrants, the question of personal guilt.