Model portraying two different periods in Eretz Israel: a typical home in Tel Aviv in 1934, and ten years earlier. This model was part of an exhibition (entitled "Palestina Ausstellung") of photographs, archeological displays, coins and models of kibbutzim organized by the Zionist Federation of Germany, and displayed in Berlin over 10 days during the month of February 1934. Some 20,000 people visited the exhibition.
The "Hechalutz" movement in Germany set up Hachshara programs in which youngsters trained themselves for life on kibbutz in Eretz Israel. Many young people who had previously not had any exposure to Zionism or organized Judaism, joined Hechalutz in the hope of immigrating to Eretz Israel. The Zionist movement also encouraged participation in the professional Hacharot established by the National Representation of German Jews.
The Nazis encouraged these Zionist endeavors as they negated the Jews' German national identity and their continued residence in Germany. At least until 1935, the Nazi authorities in Germany allowed Zionist activists to enter the country in order to assist with bringing Jews to Eretz Israel. Most of these activists were emissaries of the Labor movement who came from the kibbutzim and were active in the pioneer youth movements.
This photograph, published in the Jewish newspaper "IF" on 22 February 1934, is part of the Sonnenfeld collection, which, inter alia, documents Jewish life in Germany before the war.
Herbert Sonnenfeld was an amateur photographer, who was fired from his job in 1933 with the rise of the Nazis to power, and started to work for the Union of German Jews and for different Jewish newspapers. He would document Jewish cultural events in Germany, and also photographed the Jewish Museum in Berlin. He documented art exhibitions showcasing Jewish artists, and was considered one of the important photographers documenting Jewish life in Berlin in the Nazi period.
Sonnenfeld did not receive a permit to immigrate to Eretz Israel, which was under the British Mandate, but in September 1939, he received an immigration permit to the USA, and immigrated to New York with his wife in late 1939. He enlisted in the US Army, and resumed his photography career after the war.
The Yad Vashem Photo Archives has more than 2,000 photographs by Sonnenfeld that document Jewish, Zionist and pioneer activities in Nazi Germany, including photographs he took in the pioneer Jewish youth training camps (Hachsharot) in Germany, and on his trip to Eretz Israel. This photograph was one of a series of pictures of training activities, photographs documenting a model of settlement in Eretz Israel.
In the 1990s, a booklet with a biographic overview of Sonnenfeld was published in German. After the death of his wife, photographer Lennie Sonnenfeld in 2004, the 100,000 negatives of his photograph collection were donated to the "Bet Hatefusoth" Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv.
Yad Vashem Photo Archives, 5409/153
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