Talk Description: What strategies can we use to recover lives and artworks nearly lost to history—especially when there is little archival material available? This talk focuses on the process of rediscovering Rahel Szalit (1888–1942), one of the best-known Jewish women artists in Weimar Germany. Szalit was a sought-after illustrator and painter originally from Eastern Europe who was murdered in the Holocaust. She became known for her soulful, humorous illustrations of literature by Sholem Aleichem, Heine, Tolstoy, Dickens, Thomas Mann, and others. She published her work in the mainstream German and Jewish press, and she ran in artists’ and queer circles in 1920s Berlin and 1930s Paris. Szalit’s fascinating life demonstrates how women artists gained access to Jewish and avant-garde movements (Expressionism, New Objectivity) by experimenting with different media and genres.

Kerry Wallach Bio: Kerry Wallach is Professor and Chair of German Studies and an affiliate of the Jewish Studies Program at Gettysburg College. After majoring in the College of Letters at Wesleyan, she earned her PhD in German from the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Traces of a Jewish Artist: The Lost Life and Work of Rahel Szalit (2024) and Passing Illusions: Jewish Visibility in Weimar Germany (2017), and co-editor (with Aya Elyada) of German-Jewish Studies: Next Generations.