Return Foundation

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Return Foundation
legal form Non-profit foundation under civil law
founding 1994 in Berlin
Seat Berlin
main emphasis Promotion of Jewish artists and scholars who live in Germany
Chair Sharon Adler
Website www.stiftung-zurueckzüge.de

The Foundation Returning (spelling: Stiftung ZURÜCKGEBEN) is a non-profit, legal foundation under civil law based in Berlin. It was founded in 1994 and is the only German foundation that supports Jewish scientists and artists through financial donations.

founding

The starting point was that one of the donors had inherited paintings that she did not want to keep because of the history associated with them. This was Hilde Schramm , the eldest daughter of Hitler's architect and armaments minister Albert Speer . He bought pictures during the Nazi era. Although the origin of the pictures could not be clarified, it was obvious that they had been sold prior to forced emigration or that they were expropriated Jewish property. Albert Speer had given the paintings to his friend Robert Frank, who emigrated to Mexico, shortly before the end of the war. Frank officially declared the art treasure burned, but in reality it is said to have been stored in two containers in Mexico for decades. They were only opened after Frank's death, and the pictures were brought to Germany and shared between Albert Speer, who had meanwhile been released from prison, and Frank's heirs. Until his death in 1981 Speer is said to have sold a picture again and again. After his death, the remainder went to his wife and when she died six years later, to Speer's children. During conversations between non-Jewish and Jewish women who, like Hilde Speer, had already worked on the Nazi past, the idea arose to use the proceeds from the sale of the pictures for the individual support of descendants of the collectively injured. Four of the non-Jewish women who came from the women's movement then set up the foundation in 1994 and provided it with start-up capital. The pictures were sold and brought in about 160,000 D-Marks as start -up capital ; another 30,000 D-Marks were added by three other women. Over the years, Hilde Schramm has put a similar amount into the foundation through readings and book revenues. The founders decided to consciously promote women.

Goal and guiding principle

The aim of the foundation is to promote a diverse Jewish life in Germany. During the Nazi era, the taking of advantage, with which many Germans enriched themselves from the fate of the Jews, was widespread. For example, the apartments and furniture of deported Jews were made available to those who had been bombed out. Today this can hardly be grasped legally. Therefore, the foundation wants to enable at least a symbolic compensation. Anyone who has the property can sell it, for example, and make the proceeds available to the foundation, or have the item valued, keep it and make a donation in the appropriate amount.

financing

The hopes of the founders for large donations have not been fulfilled. However, the foundation repeatedly received smaller and larger donations. The statutes stipulate that the foundation's assets must also be used in the interest of the sustainable implementation of the statutory purposes. However, it must be ensured that an appropriate fulfillment of the purpose can still take place by 2026. However, donations are falling rapidly. So far there have been around 15,000 euros in financial donations per year. The money from the start-up phase has long been used up.

The work of the foundation is financed exclusively from donations.

Focus of work

There is no age limit for applications for scholarships . Grants were given to women from different backgrounds, including migrants from Eastern Europe, freelancers and young professionals. The foundation sees the perspectives of Jewish women as a necessary part of cultural and scientific life and, against this background, pursues the goal of promoting this group in greater numbers and to a greater extent than previously possible. Funding for this is the award of scholarships for scientific and artistic work by women of Jewish religious affiliation, although this is not tied to membership in a Jewish community, and / or of Jewish origin, as well as grants for projects by such women. In exceptional cases, work by non-Jewish women or joint projects by Jewish and non-Jewish women that thematically relate to contemporary Jewish culture or to Jewish history can also be funded.

Since it was set up, the foundation has awarded over 500,000 euros in funding. Between 1996 and 2019, over one hundred European artists and researchers received financial support for a total of 150 projects , according to Deutsche Welle and Berliner Morgenpost . The foundation's website indicates the number of projects supported as 120. The individual donations from the foundation's funds ranged between 500 and 11,000 euros.

The foundation organizes events on the perspectives and experiences of Jewish scholars, artists and cultural workers.

Bodies

The chairman of the board is the journalist and photographer Sharon Adler , her deputy the social scientist and journalist Judith Kessler (as of November 2019). Other members of the board are Anke Gimal and Tatjana Kirchner.

The advisory board includes Jewish and non-Jewish women, including the actress Adriana Altaras , the cultural scientist Christina von Braun , the educational scientist Hilde Schramm and the bookseller Rachel Salamander .

There are only Jewish women on the jury.

Awards

Well-known former scholarship holders

Deborah Feldman at the forum: authors of the Munich Literature Festival 2017

In 2014, the author Deborah Feldman received a grant to produce a teaser for her documentary The Female Touch about female identity and female sexuality against the background of ultra-orthodox and fundamentalist cultures and religions.

Katja Behrens, awarded by the ZURÜCKGEBEN Foundation for her complete work, at a reading at the Erlanger Poetenfest 2012

Ulrike Tikvah Kissmann , physicist and social scientist, received a printing grant for her dissertation on nuclear energy and German biographies. The presence of National Socialism in biographical reconstructions by nuclear technology experts . The writer , translator and editor Katja Behrens was honored for her complete work. Other scholarship holders were the writer Nea Weissberg , the author Nataly Savina , who received the Peter Härtling Prize in 2013 , and the director Gabriela Hermer , who was awarded the 2007 LiteraVision TV Prize of the City of Munich . But above all it is less well-known women who are at the beginning of their work, "for whom the money should be an initial recognition and encouragement," explains Hilde Schramm.

Cooperations

Since 2012 there has been a collaboration with the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” (EVZ) with the funding program Jewish Female Identities Today .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d ZURÜCKGEBEN Foundation: Origin. Retrieved November 8, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Annette Kuhn: The will to give something back. January 20, 2019, accessed November 8, 2019 (German).
  3. ↑ ZURÜCKGEBEN Foundation: Furniture for the bombed out. Retrieved November 8, 2019 .
  4. ↑ "Stiftung Rückgabe" and Nazi looted property - a symbolic compensation. Accessed November 8, 2019 (German).
  5. ↑ a b Brigitte Werneburg: Foundation "Return" about Nazierbe: "Our appeal aims at voluntariness" . In: The daily newspaper: taz . January 13, 2014, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed November 12, 2019]).
  6. ↑ a b c d BACKGROUND Foundation: Articles of Association. Return Foundation, accessed on November 9, 2019 .
  7. ↑ a b c Christine Schmitt: Name with a double meaning. September 18, 2019, accessed November 12, 2019 .
  8. ↑ a b c ZURÜCKGEBEN Foundation: allocation of funds. Retrieved November 7, 2019 .
  9. ↑ a b c Foundation ZURÜCKGEBEN: Funding. Retrieved November 7, 2019 .
  10. ^ Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com): German Jewish History Award goes to Hilde Schramm | DW | 01/21/2019. Retrieved November 8, 2019 (UK English). .
  11. ↑ ZURÜCKGEBEN Foundation: Events. Retrieved November 8, 2019 .
  12. ↑ ZURÜCKGEBEN Foundation: organs. Retrieved November 9, 2019 .
  13. ↑ ZURÜCKGEBEN Foundation: Awarded the German Jewish History Award 2019. Accessed on November 8, 2019 .
  14. ↑ a b Hilde Schramm & The Return Foundation. Retrieved November 8, 2019 .
  15. ↑ - Foundation & Sponsoring. Retrieved November 8, 2019 .
  16. ↑ ZURÜCKGEBEN Foundation: Funded Women 2015. Accessed on November 8, 2019 .
  17. ↑ a b Foundation ZURÜCKGEBEN: Funded projects. Retrieved November 7, 2019 .
  18. ↑ ZURÜCKGEBEN Foundation: Funded Women 2014. Accessed on November 8, 2019 .