The Mischlinge Exposé
On September 15, 1935, the Nazis enacted two race laws: the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. These laws defined and discriminated against numerous groups in the Nazi regime, including the Mischlinge – a derogatory term for those neither fully Jewish nor fully Aryan in the view of the Nazis.
The Mischlinge Exposé weaves a multimedia tapestry around this little-known aspect of the Holocaust. Interweaving video and audio testimony from Carolyn’s godmother and her father, both labeled Mischling, Grade A by the Nazis, with the music of composers from the salon period who converted to Christianity in the decades before the war, and works reacting to questions of identity after the war, the program vividly illustrates what it was like to be between worlds in Germany in the first half of the 20th century. Through the telling of her family story, Ms. Enger’s concert and live documentary The Mischlinge Exposé directly addresses universally significant issues of identity and inclusion, encouraging empathy, tolerance, and engagement.