Lisel Haas (1898 - 1989) was a German-born Jewish photographer who emigrated from her home town of Mönchengladbach in 1938 and settled in Birmingham with her partner Grete Bermbach. A successful photographer in Germany, she was quickly able to re-establish herself in the UK in spite of institutional and cultural barriers. 

Supported by a National Archives 'Archives Revealed' cataloguing grant, and with additional support from The Feeney Trust, Bertz Associates is working with the Library of Birmingham to catalogue the Haas collection. Working with local artist-facilitators, community groups will consult on the direction of cataloguing and contribute to archival interpretation.

Bertz Associates are supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England to hold an exhibition of Haas’s work at the Library of Birmingham in late 2026, which will feature artistic responses created by contemporary artists, and be accompanied by a published catalogue of essays and written responses to the archive by academics and writers. 

Finally, this project is also funded by the John Feeney Charitable Trust, who are supporting the commissioning of a blue plaque in remembrance of Lisel Haas, along with a series of public archive exploration workshops to raise awareness of the archive.