Hajo Jahn

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Hajo Jahn (born May 31, 1941 in Berlin ) is a German journalist and chairman of the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Gesellschaft , which is committed to the legacy of the Wuppertal poet Else Lasker-Schüler .

Life

After a two-year traineeship at the Westfälische Rundschau in Dortmund , for which he had already photographed and written as a reporter, the former miner became an editor there, then a freelance journalist for WDR and ARD. As a radio and television presenter and reporter, he worked from 1970 to 2000 as WDR studio manager in Wuppertal, initially as a one-man editorial team. In 1973 he played a presenter in the Wolfgang Petersen film Smog .

In 1990 Jahn became the founder, honorary managing director and later also chairman of the Else Lasker Schüler Society and the foundation "Burned and Exiled Poets - for a Center for Persecuted Arts". This facility, which was realized in spring 2008 under the umbrella of the Kunstmuseum Solingen , is a unique institution in Europe, is interdisciplinary with the first permanent exhibitions of ostracized expressionist painters from the " Gerhard Schneider Collection " and the exile literature " Jürgen Serke Collection ", purchased by the Else Lasker Schüler Foundation. She owns six original letters from Thomas Mann and 23 original drawings by Else Lasker-Schüler, which were confiscated from the Berlin National Gallery in 1937 as degenerate . It is the world's second largest collection of Lasker-Schüler pictures outside of the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem.

Jahn initiated poetry readings in asylum seekers' homes nationwide in 1992 after brutal attacks by neo-Nazis against asylum seekers in Schwerin, Cottbus, Rostock and many other cities. Jahn managed to get prominent writers to readings and discussions in all these asylum seekers' homes, and with it the German neighbors as listeners, who until then had only looked at the horrific pictures in the TV armchair.

The call for a foundation for a “Center for the Persecuted Arts” was signed by the Exil-PEN in London and more than 50 authors, including Salman Rushdie as the world's most famous persecuted writer, but also Günter Grass and Siegfried Lenz , Eva Demski and Peter Härtling and poets who had experienced persecution such as Wolf Biermann , Sarah Kirsch or Herta Müller . At the same time, Hajo Jahn initiated two internet projects: The pedagogically oriented “Exil Club” with “Schools on the Net eV, Bonn” and www.exil-archiv.de, the virtual “Center” as a joint project with the Solingen Art Museum and now more than 2000 Biographies of ostracized writers, musicians, visual artists, politicians, trade unionists, theologians, scientists and humanities scholars through to athletes.

Jahn has been organizing the Else Lasker Schüler forums since 1993 with exhibitions, concerts, readings, contemporary witnesses in schools, for literary and political exchange, for example in Wuppertal / Solingen , Jerusalem , Breslau , Prague , Zurich , Catania or Vienna as examples of the Work of an active center of persecuted arts. He does this in order to create a contemporary culture of remembrance and memory pedagogy that goes beyond traditional commemorative rituals. For this, he won prominent authors such as Pavel Kohout , Sarah Kirsch and Herta Müller and patrons such as the poetic President Václav Havel , Lech Wałęsa (Poland), Lennart Meri (Estonia), the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres , Johannes Rau , the refugee commissioner Mary Robinson ( High Commissioner for Refugees the United Nations ), the Swiss Federal President Moritz Leuenberger or Władysław Bartoszewski , the former Foreign Minister of Poland.

For Hajo Jahn, the catastrophe of the 20th century began with the expulsion of artists and intellectuals. The fate of Else Lasker-Schüler, who became famous in Berlin, the birthplace of Hajo Jahn, who now lives and works in Wuppertal, the birthplace of the painting poet, is like a metaphor for this.

In 2009 Jahn initiated a petition to the German Bundestag. He wanted to achieve that the “Center against Expulsion” in Berlin is expanded to include the subject of the expulsion of artists and other intellectuals. The more than 2,000 signatories include a. Władysław Bartoszewski, Ralph Giordano , the authors Elfriede Jelinek , Reiner Kunze , Erich Loest , the Polish Association of Writers, the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace , the German-Israeli Society with President Johannes Gerster , the Austrian Youth for Nature Friends (banned in the Third Reich), Hannelore Hoger , Iris Berben , Angela Winkler u. Renan Demirkan , journalists like Gert von Paczensky , Fritz Pleitgen and Ulrich Wickert as well as the board of the German Journalists' Association, but also Norbert Blüm , Konrad Schily , Friedrich Schorlemmer , PEN President Jiří Gruša , Bishop Maria Jepsen .

The Center for Persecuted Arts has been registered with the Wuppertal District Court since February 9, 2015. At Jahn's instigation, the name is protected by copyright by the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Gesellschaft in order to secure participation. The two previous foundations have been combined to form the “Community Foundation for Persecuted Arts, Else Lasker Student Center / Gerhard Schneider Art Collection”. Your participation is limited. The Rhineland Regional Council has taken over the town of Solingen funding and aiding the lead in the new bodies.

Awards

For his services he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon in 2003 , the Rhineland Thaler in 2006 and the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2010 .

Works

Hajo Jahn is editor of the Else Lasker Schüler Almanach editions

  • with Sarah Kirsch and Jürgen Serke : My dreams fall into the world . Hammer, Wuppertal 1995.
  • Between Thebes and Shanghai . Oberbaum, Chemnitz, Berlin, St. Petersburg 1998.
  • Conscience versus violence . Edition Künstlertreff, Wuppertal 1999.
  • Moments in Jerusalem . Bleicher, Gerlingen 2002.
  • with Hans Joachim Schädlich : I want to pull strings around me . Hammer, Wuppertal 2000.
  • with Ulla Hahn : In my tower in the clouds . Hammer, Wuppertal 2002.
  • Zweiseelenstadt . Hammer, Wuppertal 2004.
  • Sometimes I long for Prague . Hammer, Wuppertal 2005.
  • Where should I go? Refuge Zurich - Vanishing Point Poetry . Hammer, Wuppertal 2007.
  • Every verse a leopard bite . Anniversary almanac for the 20th anniversary of the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Gesellschaft. Hammer, Wuppertal, 2011
  • What are you doing there ... in Vienna? Hammer, Wuppertal 2013
  • The blue rider has fallen . Hammer, Wuppertal 2015

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Jahn, Hajo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jahn, Hans-Joachim (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist
DATE OF BIRTH May 31, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin