In an intimate living-room setting, Eleonora L. Herder searches for the hidden echoes of her family history. Using documents and objects, she presents an alternative perspective on German-Jewish identity, in which the boundaries between the private and the public, as well as between the roles of victim and perpetrator, are blurred.
While one great-grandfather was a high-ranking German early member of the Nazi party, who marched alongside Adolf Hitler to the "Feldherrnhalle" during the 1923 "Hitler Putsch" in Munich, the other great-grandfather's family was forced to flee due to their Jewish heritage and was broken by exile.
The fact that her grandparents, coming from two such different families, met in the 1950s, fell in love, and had eight children seals the beginning of a tragic family odyssey marked by silence and mental illness, leading from Como, Rome and Barcelona to Santa Barbara, California.

Eleonora L. Herder has spent over ten years compiling material from archives and personal sources to break her family's silence. As she continually discovers new documents and photographs and has more conversations, the text underlying the play changes from performance to performance.

The production creates a comfy setting: Herder speaks directly to the audience, while performer Liese Lyon serves tea and biscuits, and Jonas Harken accompanies the evening on the piano. A ghostly, echo-like sound-design breaks through the cozy salon atmosphere, creating a subtle sense of unease.
The audience is invited to follow Herder's research process and engage with the questions, doubts, and uncertainties it raises.

The performance was enthusiastically received by audiences in six sold-out performances in December 2023 and by the press. The "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" praised it: "ÜBER DAS UNBEHAGEN ZU WOHNEN raises questions of identity that extend far beyond the family circle." (Christoph Schütte)

Performance: Lela Herder, Jonas Harksen, Liese Lyon
Piano: Jonas Harksen
Off-Voice: Beatrice Magnus-Wiebel
Text & Direction: Eleonora L. Herder
Dramaturgy & Research: Tim Schuster
Creative Producer: ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro
Stage & Costume: Marina Rengel Lucena
Video & Light Design: Ayla Pierrot
Sound Design & Musical Adviser: Jonas Harksen
Production Assistance: Martin Heise
Graphic Design: Anna Pirot und Felix Kosok (Bureau 069)

Funded by the "Kulturamt der Stadt Frankfurt", the "Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Kunst und Kultur", the Rudolf Augstein Stiftung, and the "Fonds Darstellende Künste" in the Production Funding program with funds from the Federal Government Commissioners for Culture and the Media.
With the kind support of Villa Gründergeist. andpartnersincrime receives 3-year funding from the Stadt Frankfurt am Main.

The shows are part of the Frankfurt LAB - Emerging Artists Program, with kind support by Stiftung Polytechnische Gesellschaft Frankfurt am Main and the Kulturamt of the city of Frankfurt.