"Jewish monopoly capitalists"

When East-German schools were officially reopened in the Soviet-occupied zone on the first of October 1945 vast parts of Europe were in ruins. In „extermination-camps“ and in other places of execution Germans had murdered six million Jews. What did East-German children entering the classrooms after the war and the following generations of East-German pupils learn about Jews? What did their textbooks say about Jewish history and about Jewish culture? And how did the books explain the horrors of the Holocaust? This analysis of East-German history textbooks used between 1948 and 1972 shows how Jewish history was officially represented by a state that promoted atheism. The study proves that not Holocaust-related Jewish history largely disappeared from the textbooks subsequent to the anti-Semitic purge in the German Democratic Republic in 1952/3. At the same time the analysis demonstrates how East-Germany systematically rejected historical responsibility for Nazi-crimes by claiming to represent „everything that was progressive, humanistic and revolutionary“ in German history.