The doors of Café Atara are open to everyone. The legendary German-Jewish Café Atara in Jerusalem serves as inspiration and starting point. It was founded in 1938 by the Jewish forced emigrant Bernhard Grünspan and became an important meeting place for German-speaking Jews in Jerusalem.

The journalist Hannah Arendt was a guest there, as were the poet Else Lasker-Schüler and the architect Eric Mendelsohn. Many of the guests tried to maintain their German world even in exile in Jerusalem. In our Café Atara, guests get to know these historical figures up close; they sit together at the table and start a conversation. The actors do not leave their roles and thus bring the life stories and thoughts of the exiles closer to the guests. This atmosphere is supported by room-filling projections and digital productions by the artist Kane Kampmann.

Together, however, we are moving away from the purely historical perspective, as current refugees and migrants are also part of the project. This allows them to share their experiences of flight and homelessness. This is supported by a podcast and other digital elements. This creates not only a dialogue between viewers and actors, but also between the present and the past.

In general, the escape from Nazi Germany is viewed positively, because it saved many people's lives. But escape and exile always mean loss. Feelings such as being a stranger in a new country concern refugees then and now. The reference to the present is intended to show similarities in terms of discrimination and exclusion and make them tangible for the audience. The project is aimed at all people with and without experience of fleeing.