Handwritten documents from the Holocaust, whether in the form of diaries, personal letters or official forms, sometimes seem to have been written in an unreadable scrawl. Often, the reason they appear so illegible is because they were written in the old German Sütterlin script.
In this online workshop, Sütterlin specialist Carolin Sommer will shine a light on the mysterious writing script. We’ll uncover why it was introduced, why it was abandoned, and why it appears so hieroglyphic even when written in a neat hand. We’ll get to try our hands on deciphering a few phrases ourselves and will hopefully come away less daunted when we next come across it.
About the Speaker:
Carolin Sommer is a freelance translator specialising in old German script and documents from the Holocaust. She has translated numerous books, including Jennifer Teege’s New York Times bestseller My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me (The Experiment/Hodder, 2015).
Virtual Event guidelines:
The Library will send you a Zoom link and joining instructions via email prior to the event. Please check your junk email folders.
Please try and join 5 minutes before the event start time and we will let you into the room (do try and bear with us if this takes a few minutes).
If you would like to ask a question during the event, please type your question into the chat function, and we will endeavour to answer as many questions as possible during the Q&A. Your webcam will not be seen during this event.
This event is free, although registration via the link below is required. Please note that our free events are run by staff volunteers. Thank you for your patience should we have any technical or audio difficulties. We will do our best to correct them but this is not always possible.
This workshop is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
