More than Child’s Play: Rosa Freudenthal’s Arts and Crafts Workshop

This exhibition tells the story of Rosa Freudenthal (1870–1951) and the creative project she undertook in Weimar-era Germany. After World War I, with her children grown, Rosa looked for a way to fill her time and also supplement her income. She began to organize exhibition-sales of Jewish art in the living room of her apartment in Breslau (today Wrocław, Poland). In 1921 she gave this undertaking a name: The Freudenthal Arts and Crafts Workshop, Breslau (Kunstgewerbestube Freudenthal, Breslau).

The Workshop produced Jewish ritual objects in modern designs and decorative craftworks, as well as children’s games with Jewish content. These were games of a new kind, part of a recent educational trend that was gaining momentum in the 1920s. Rosa Freudenthal’s various innovations were presented across Germany and beyond, in exhibitions which she organized by herself or in cooperation with Jewish organizations. Her exhibitions and products were mentioned in dozens of newspaper notices, advertisements, and articles, adding greatly to our knowledge.

Thanks to a fruitful collaboration with Rosa’s descendants, and the collection, written documents, and photographs they have entrusted to us, we were able to conduct the necessary research, to study Rosa Freudenthal’s enterprise in its historical context, and to recall some all-but-forgotten Breslau personalities involved in this story.