Feminist Salon
Resistant History

With Gisela Notz (social scientist and historian), moderated by Sonja Eismann (editor, Missy Magazine)

Gisela Notz herself is the host of a salon – the ‘Geschichtssalon’ (History Salon) in the Beginenhof feminist housing project in Kreuzberg. But her idea of such a place is different from the bourgeois setting for ‘distinguished ladies’ that is usually associated with it: it is explicitly intended to be a space for resistance, for history from below. It is in this context that she presents the dancer Hanna Berger (1910–1962), a contemporary of Hanna Bekker vom Rath. But unlike the industrialist’s daughter, Berger came from a so-called ‘oppressed background’. The choreographer, resistance fighter, and anti-Nazi, who grew up in the working-class district of Vienna-Meidling and died in East Berlin, was arrested in 1942 for allowing ‘subversive communist meetings in her flat’. She survived the Third Reich despite being involved with the Red Orchestra and sentenced to forced labour in a concentration camp. In the discussion, Gisela Notz will explore the extent to which her meetings were a political salon and what we can learn from this format, both historically and today – in the relaxed atmosphere of our feminist pop-up salon and in dialogue with visitors.

Gisela Notz (she/he) has a doctorate in social sciences and history. She has worked as a university lecturer as well as a scientific advisor for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and as national chair of pro familia. She was editor of the journals beiträge zur feministischen theorie und praxis and lunapark21. She specializes in family and social policy, alternative economies, and historical women’s studies. Since 2003, she has published the annual wall calendar Wegbereiterinnen.

This event is part of the series FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES, an intersectional, discursive accompanying programme curated by Sonja Eismann (editor of Missy Magazine) and Josephine Papke (author and journalist).

Public events are included in the admission fee. Pre-registration is not necessary.