Kibbutz Buchenwald: history and fiction

ABSTRACT The article highlights the central role that fictional, poetic, and artistic forms play in the construction and understanding of Kibbutz Buchenwald, a little-known episode that took place between 1945–1955 in which a group of 16 Jewish Holocaust survivors came together to build a kibbutz in Israel. The group was formed in Germany immediately after liberation, and after a number of years of preparation eventually immigrated to Israel, where they settled down and formed a kibbutz, whose name was changed to Kibbutz Netzer Sereni. In particular, the article focuses on Gil Yefman’s exhibition ‘Kibbutz Buchenwald’ at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (Yefman, 2018) in collaboration with Dov Or-Ner and the Kuchinate Collective, as a starting point for the exploration of the affair. The exhibition made use of various art forms to revisit the historical event; it mingled fact and fantasies, revived a variety of narratives and collective traumas, and explored the rift between Holocaust and revival. An analysis of the ‘Goethe Oak’ motif in the exhibition demonstrates the crucial role of fiction in the pursuit of history, and the way in which art can propose a new perception of past and present.