Diverging Fates

We arranged a collaborative research workshop with members of the circus community at the private ‘Zirkusarchiv Winkler’ in Berlin, 3.11.2018. Among the participants was the former circus artist Gisela Nyman, 84, whose Jewish father escaped from the concentration camp Buchenwald. Edith Kleinbarth, 87, whose family survived the war through hiding in the German circus Hoppe, talked to us via Skype. Immediately after the war Edith and her family had for several years engagements in French Circuses. Edith became an important witness and informant for our research in Germany and France. We achieved new information, but also explored the limits and consequences of sharing in-group knowledge, information that may carry symbolic or social weight within the circus community.