Obermayer German Jewish History Award

Johannes Bruno

Speyer, Rhineland-Palatinate

It's hard to know exactly what to call him. Teacher. Author. Activist. Historian. Journalist. Guide. Johannes Bruno is a mixture of all those things—and when his friends and colleagues in Speyer started to simply use the name "Juden Bruno," or Jewish Bruno, it was easy to see why they would describe a Christian in such a way.

Since moving to this Rhineland city more than 30 years ago, the Italian-born Bruno has been central to the revival of its Jewish memory. From the books and articles he has written to the Holocaust memorial he promoted; and from his school lectures and city tours to his work restoring Germany's oldest and largest mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath, Bruno remains a vital presence reawakening Speyer residents to their past. 

"The Jews were once a part of this town and their history is part of its whole history," Bruno says, citing the long heritage of Jewish scholars, philosophers and merchants in Speyer that dates back nearly 1,000 years. "They belong to it-and I don't want history to be forgotten. I want to remind people how important the Jews were and what they achieved here, so that they feel responsible for what's left over."

Bruno himself learned about responsibility early on in life. Born in Rome in 1933, he remembers having contact with the Jewish families that lived in his apartment building-particularly the family his mother saved by hiding them from the Germans in 1943. After an observant Catholic upbringing, Bruno felt drawn to history and religious studies. He moved in 1958 to Germany where he completed his education and started teaching high school. Then, years later, his focus on Judaism started to evolve: first as a hobby, after he read books like Heinrich Graetz's "History of the Jews," then as a passion when he discovered the Speyer archives and immersed himself in its newspapers, documents and literature. Bruno spent decades in research and wrote articles for local papers before publishing his first book in 2000, a 300-page history called Schicksale Speyerer Juden 1800 bis 1980 (The Fate of Speyer's Jews, 1800-1980). Four years later, his meticulous study of medieval Jewry appeared under the title Die Weisen von Speyer oder Jüdische Gelehrte des Mittelalters an dera hiesigen Talmudschule (The Sages of Speyer or The Jewish Scholars of the Middle Ages at the Local Talmud School).

"I was amazed at the depth and breadth of [Bruno's] knowledge of Jewish history, Jewish customs and the synagogue service," Gunther Katz, a Speyer-born survivor of the Holocaust, said of the book, and commended Bruno for his "tireless work to memorialize the contributions of the Jewish population of Speyer from ancient times to the present."'

Beyond his writing, Bruno is best known for leading tours, and overseeing last year's restoration, of the historic mikvah is the central feature of Jewish Speyer. He has guided thousands of foreigners underground in recent years to view the 12th century bathhouse; and in his tours of the city above ground, he shows visitors the shops once owned by Jews, the houses where they once lived, the ruins of the ancient synagogue and the cemetery.

Not to mention that he leads them past the memorial he himself helped build and which he had to fight to have placed in its prominent position across the street from the former synagogue, honoring 71 Speyer Jews killed in the Holocaust. 

"I always looking forward to the tours," Bruno says. "I like to talk to people, and I like them to ask questions. I try to explain that we come from the Jewish religion; that the Jews and Christians have common roots and that we belong together."'

Not surprisingly, his activities have been received with wide support.

"Mr. Bruno's work has been very important for the rediscovery of Jewish contributions to the city," says Matthias Nowak, a spokesman for the Speyer mayor's office who collaborated with Bruno on the mikvah restoration and other city projects. "For a long time, Jewish achievements seemed almost forgotten in Speyer. Bruno dedicated himself to researching and making that history accessible."

Which is not to say that each of his plans has succeeded—like, for example his recent attempt and failure to get one of Speyer's streets named after a former Jewish teacher, shop owner and local "personality" named Betty Blum.

Needless to say, Bruno's work is continuing. In addition to guiding tours and writing articles about Jewish events in the local press, he has now started to engage Speyer's Russian Jewish community, which numbers about 300, to see about possibilities of building a new synagogue.

But away from his social work and back in his study, Bruno has done something even more impressive: at 73, he has finished his third book, which is due out in 2007, entitled Das Mahnmal fur die Judischen Opfer der Naziverfolgung 1933-1945 Chronik der Speyerer Gedenkstatte (The Memorial for the Jewish Victims of Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945: A Chronicle of the Speyer Memorial). In it, he has written a personal biography for every Speyer Jew who perished in the Holocaust and in doing so, recaptured one more piece of his adopted city's history.

"I don't want these people to be forgotten," Bruno says. "I want to keep their memory alive so that everybody can remember what happened, so that it never happens again."