Center for German and European Studies

Trotzdem Sprechen "A Conversation with Lena Gorelik and Mirjam Zadoff"

Monday, Oct. 6, 2025
12:30 - 2:00 pm ET (US)
Zoom Webinar

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About the Event

The Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023 and the war and ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza have caused unprecedented levels of isolation and fear among many groups in Germany. Open letters, cancellations, and public debates lead to paralysis, ceased conversations and dissolved alliances. The dividing power of differences that are based in the real experience of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and racism ultimately seems to benefit only the right-wing extremists - those who want to put an end to the liberal and open cultures of dialogue, as well as democracy as a whole.

In their collection of essays 'Trotzdem Sprechen' (published in April 2024), the writers Lena Gorelik, Miryam Schellbach, and Mirjam Zadoff asked: "What courage, what strength, and what tolerance for ambiguity and conflict can we, indeed must we, master in order to stop the logic of hardening on the part of those who want to make our world a better place?" They brought together authors who remain committed to dialogue, however difficult it may be. Thoughtful, in undisguised pain and an unbroken will to weigh up each other's views, they nevertheless talk to each other. The result:  a volume that is "the most tangible utopia of our time."

Join authors Lena Gorelik and Mirjam Zadoff to discuss how German writers are coping with German "Staatsraeson" vis-a-vis Israel, the impact of the ongoing war crimes against the Palestinian people, and the reaction by local German authorities and institutions.

 © NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, Foto: Connolly Weber Photography

About the Speakers

Lena Gorelik, born in St. Petersburg in 1981, came to Germany with her parents in 1992. After training at the German School of Journalism in Munich, she completed the elite degree program “Eastern European Studies.” In addition to novels such as “Hochzeit in Jerusalem” (Wedding in Jerusalem), “Die Listensammlerin” (The List Collector), and “Mehr Schwarz als Lila” (More Black than Purple), she writes plays and radio plays as well as articles on social issues for various german newspapers. Her latest novel, “Wer wir sind” (Who We Are, 2021), was followed by a written account of her poetry lectureship at the Literaturhaus Hannover (“Ich schreibe, weil ich glaube, ich bin” (I Write Because I Believe I Am, 2024)) and the anthology “Trotzdem sprechen” (Speak Anyway, 2024). She has received various awards for her writing, most recently the Heinrich Mann Prize for Essay Writing (2024), and she was nominated for the German Book Prize.

Mirjam Zadoff is a curator, author, and the director of the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism. She teaches at LMU and TUM universities in Munich and is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, as well as serving on the advisory boards of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, the House of History of the Federal Republic of Germany Foundation, the House of the Wannsee Conference, and the Akademie Schloss Solitude, among others. Her current publications include the essay collections “Wie wir überwintern. Den Lebensmut durch die harten Zeiten retten” (How We Get Through Winter: Preserving the Courage to Live Through Hard Times) (Nov. 2025), “Gewalt und Gedächtnis. Globale Erinnerung im 21. Jahrhundert” (Violence and Memory: Global Remembrance in the 21st Century) (2023), and “Trotzdem sprechen” (Speak Anyway) (2024), co-edited with Lena Gorelik and Miryam Schellbach, as well as Fragile Demokratien. Was freie Gesellschaften bedroht – und was sie zusammenhält (Fragile Democracies: What Threatens Free Societies – and What Holds Them Together), with Paul-Moritz Rabe and Denis Heuring.