The GDR and Anti-Semitism?: A Comparison of Jan Koplowitz' Novel Bohemia, mein Schicksal (1979) and Horst Seemann's Film Hotel Polan und seine Gäste (1981)

This article will show that, contrary to Jan Koplowitz' novel that traces the history of a Jewish family from Bohemia through the first half of the twentieth century, Horst Seemann's film version of this text is very antisemitic. By making use of antisemitic stereotypes that show greed for making money and lust for political power to be the "essence" of being Jewish, the film, shown on GDR television in the early 1980s, may have dangerously reinforced latent antisemitic feelings in the East German population. It is an example that supports the claim of recent scholarship that racism was practiced in the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany).