On February 9, the Jewish Museum in Berlin will unveil an exhibition featuring satirical anti-Nazi magazine, The Underwater Cabaret.
This unique publication was painstakingly compiled and copied underground by lawyer Curt Bloch, who was in hiding from the Germans.
Born into a Jewish family in Dortmund in 1908, Bloch pursued law studies at the University of Berlin. With the rise of the Nazis, he fled to the Netherlands.
After the occupation of Holland, Bloch found refuge in a cramped attic room in the small border town of Enschede. It was here, in the summer of 1943, that he embarked on creating his magazine.
Using newspaper clippings, he crafted collages, added captions with an ink pen, and hand-assembled the pages of the magazine. He named his publication The Underwater Cabaret, a term used in Dutch to refer to people in hiding, with a nod to the renowned political theater of Weimar Berlin. Bloch's friends in the Dutch resistance distributed around thirty copies of the first edition. Within a week, Bloch had prepared a new issue.
In total, 95 issues of the magazine were published. Through humor and satire, Bloch not only lampooned the Nazis and Hitler but also attempted to convey messages to his relatives who were deported to the Sobibor extermination camp.
He held onto hope that his magazine would reach them, including poems dedicated to his sister and mother. The final issue of The Underwater Cabaret was released on April 3, 1945, coinciding with the liberation of Enschede, allowing Bloch to emerge from hiding.
All 95 issues of The Underwater Cabaret are now on display at the Jewish Museum Berlin. The exhibition will run from February 9 to May 26.
