Jacob Kushner

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Kang Chun Cheng

A close-up of Jacob Kushner.

Jacob Kushner

Jacob Kushner — an international journalist who got his start in Madison writing for The Daily Cardinal, La Comunidad News, Wisconsin State Journal and Wisconsin Watch — is promoting his important new book, Look Away: A True Story of Murders, Bombings, and a Far-Right Campaign to Rid Germany of Immigrants. The book reveals how a group of young Germans carried out a shocking spree of white supremacist violence, and how a nation and its government ignored them until it was too late. Kushner, who returned to Madison in 2023 to teach courses on international reporting and migration, will be joined in conversation by Stephanie Janeth Salgado Altamirano, the Madison Community Organizer for Voces de la Frontera, an organization committed to intersectional understanding of advocacy for immigrants rights and youth.

media release: A Room of One's Own is thrilled to welcome Jacob Kushner for a reading on his new book Look Away: A True Story of Murders, Bombings, and a Far-Right Campaign to Rid Germany of Immigrants in conversation with Stephanie Janeth Salgado Altamirano Join us for this important discussion on modern day white supremacy.

This is an in person conversation at A Room of One's Own.

About the book

Not long after the Berlin Wall fell, three teenagers became friends in the East German town of Jena. It was a time of excitement, but also of economic crisis: some four million East Germans found themselves out of jobs. The friends began attending far-right rallies with people who called themselves National Socialists: Nazis. Like the Hitler-led Nazis before them, they blamed minorities for their ills. From 2000 to 2011, they embarked on the most horrific string of white nationalist killings since the Holocaust. Their target: immigrants.

Look Away follows Beate Zschäpe and her two accomplices—and sometimes lovers—as they radicalized within Germany’s far-right scene, escaped into hiding, and carried out their terrorist spree. Unable to believe that the brutal killings and bombings were being carried out by white Germans, police blamed—and sometimes framed—the immigrants instead. Readers meet Gamze Kubaşık, whose family emigrated from Turkey to seek safety, only to find themselves in the terrorists’ sights. It also tracks Katharina König, an Antifa punk who would help expose the NSU and their accomplices to the world.  A masterwork of reporting and storytelling, Look Away reveals how a group of young Germans carried out a shocking spree of white supremacist violence, and how a nation and its government ignored them until it was too late. 

Originally from Milwaukee, Jacob Kushner graduated from UW-Madison with a B.A. in journalism and Latin American studies and received his MA in Political Journalism from Columbia University. While in Madison, he wrote for The Daily Cardinal, La Comunidad News, the Wisconsin State Journal, and Wisconsin Watch. In 2020, he published This is How the Heart Beats: LGBTQ East Africa, a book collaboration with photographer Jake Naughton (UW Journalism & African Studies ’10). Jacob works as a foreign correspondent who writes magazine and other longform articles from Africa, Germany, and the Caribbean. His writing has appeared in dozens of publications, including the New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Economist, National Geographic, The Atavist, The Nation, Foreign Policy and The Guardian. In Fall 2023 he returned to Madison to teach courses on International Reporting and Migration.

Connect with Jacob: Twitter: @JacobKushner | Instagram: @Jacob_Kushner | Facebook: @JacobFKushner | Website: jacobkushner.com

Stephanie Janeth Salgado Altamirano (Ella/Elle) was born and raised in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Stephanie moved to Madison, Wisconsin, in 2015. She graduated with honors from Vel Phillips Memorial High School as an ESL student and from UW–Madison with degrees in Environmental Studies and Political Science and with certificates in Chicané/Latiné Studies and Public Policy. Stephanie founded the Memorial High School Green Club after awareness of the interaction of systems of oppression led her to climate justice activism. The Green Club along other high schoolers climate justice activists helped organize the 2019 Madison Climate Strike, out of which emerged the Youth Climate Action Team (YCAT), a nonprofit that mobilizes young people to demand climate justice. Stephanie was subsequently invited to join the Wisconsin Governor’s Task Force on Climate Change, which issued its landmark report in December 2020. Stephanie now works as the Madison Community Organizer for Voces de la Frontera, an organization committed to intersectional understanding of advocacy for immigrants rights and youth.