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Ein Schtetl in der Stadt – Jüdische Identitätsräume in Texten von Martin Beradt und Sammy Gronemann
(2010)
The concern of this thesis is a discussion of the way German-Jewish identity manifests itself in two literary texts before and after 1933. Using the examples of Sammy Gronemann’s novel Tohuwabohu and Martin Beradt’s Die Straße der kleinen Ewigkeit, it offers a textual analysis of two works which share close connections in terms of subject matter, style, and their respective authors’ background, but are historically divided by the fundamental experience of the rise of National Socialism in Germany.
I argue that space is a crucial factor through which identity is constituted in each text, both of which use and partially subvert the romanticized image of the Eastern European shtetl brought to Germany by authors such as Arnold Zweig in the aftermath of World War I. Space in this context always has a twofold quality to it. It functions as a space of identity, but also as a space of identification through which a group of people label others as either belonging or not belonging to a specific space. Furthermore, both texts reject monolithic definitions of Jewish identity, emphasizing instead the diversity of Jewish life in Europe before the Rise of National Socialism.
In situ rainwater harvesting has a long history in arid and semi-arid regions of the world buffering water shortages for human consumption and agriculture. In the context of an Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) in the Cuvelai Basin in northern Namibia, roof top rainwater harvesting is being introduced to a rural community for the irrigation of household scale gardens for the cultivation of horticulture products. This study elaborates how harvested rainwater can be used for garden irrigation in a sustainable manner evaluating ecologic, economic and social implications. Considering local conditions eight cropping scenarios were designed, including different criteria as well as one and two annual planting seasons. These schemes were tested under present climate conditions and under three future climate change scenarios for 2050 with the help of a tank model designed to model monthly tank inflows and outflows. Special attention was laid on risk and uncertainty aspects of varying inter-annual and interseasonal precipitation and future climate change. A framework for the assessment of sustainability was adapted to the purposes of this study and indicators have been developed in order to assess the cropping and irrigation schemes for sustainability.
The study found that with the given tank size of 30 m³, depending on crop scenario, under optimized conditions a garden area of 60 to 90 m³ can be irrigated. The choice of crops highly impacts water use efficiency and economic profitability, compared to the considerably lower impact of amount of annual planting seasons and future climate change. In the case of worsening future climate conditions, adaptation measures need to be taken as especially the economic as well as the environmental situation are expected to exacerbate due to expected decreases in yields and revenues. Already under present conditions however, the economic dimension represents the most limiting factor to sustainability, particularly due to the excessive investment costs of the rainwater harvesting and gardening facility. Nonetheless, rainwater harvesting in combination with gardening can be regarded as successful in securing household nutrition, providing sufficient horticulture products for household consumption or market sale. At the same time with the optimal choice of crops the investment costs can be recovered within the end of the lifespan of the facility.