Abstract
This dissertation examines how selected German-language literary works by Jewish authors and artists raised in German-speaking Europe model sympathy toward Eastern European Jewish characters and figures (Ostjuden) during the interwar period. Focusing on Hermann Struck’s and Arnold Zweig’s Das ostjüdische Antlitz (1922), Vicki Baum’s “Raffael Gutmann” (1911/1922), and Stefan Zweig’s “Buchmendel” (1929), I propose a new reading of literary representations of Eastern European Jews. Rather than interpreting these depictions as expressions of Jewish self-hatred or internalized antisemitism, or as idealizations of Eastern European Jewry, I argue that the narratives examined here model sympathy as a form of recognition and evaluation based on shared values with German audiences and, thus, presenting Eastern European Jewish figures as worthy of understanding while maintaining the cultural differences that structure their representation. Drawing on theories of sympathy as a relational and cognitive form of social judgment, I examine how literary and visual strategies construct sympathetic depictions of Eastern European Jewish figures for distinct, and at times overlapping, Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. In these narratives, sympathy does not depend on identification or the elimination of difference. It rather emerges through processes of understanding, interpretation, and recognition that allow Eastern European Jewish experiences and traditions to be represented as complex and meaningful within German-language cultural contexts. Situated within the political and cultural circumstances of the interwar period, this dissertation examines how these works respond to antisemitism, anti-Jewish violence, nationalism, Zionism, migration and displacement, and debates over Jewish belonging. Through close narrative analysis, each chapter examines a distinct mode of modeling sympathy. Chapter One examines Hermann Struck’s and Arnold Zweig’s Das ostjüdische Antlitz (1922) and it demonstrates how the travelogue form, the narrator’s interpretive role, and the interaction between text and image generate sympathy toward Eastern European Jewish figures. Chapter Two analyzes Vicki Baum’s two versions of “Raffael Gutmann” (1911/1922) and argues that sympathy emerges through music, friendship, and interpersonal connection. By tracing the characters’ relationships, the chapter demonstrates how musical spaces and social relationships challenge fixed notions of the Ostjude as confined to the Jewish neighborhood and portray Eastern European Jewish characters as participants in Viennese cultural life. Chapter Three looks at Stefan Zweig’s “Buchmendel” (1929) and shows how intertextual references to Yiddish literature and shifts in narrative perspective transform Jakob Mendel (the main character) from an ambivalent figure into an individual whose suffering and experience become recognized through sympathy.
Committee Chair
Caroline Kita
Committee Members
Erin Glothlin; Lynne Tatlock; Nancy Berg; Sarah Koellner
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Author's Department
Germanic Languages and Literatures
Document Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
8-17-2026
Language
English (en)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7936/3wjw-zd17
Recommended Citation
Torralbo Higuera, Juana Maria, "Sympathetic Depictions: Eastern European Jews during the Interwar Period in Works by German Jewish Authors" (2026). Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations. 3875.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.7936/3wjw-zd17