Berlin Jewish Museum Shows German Jewish History

Architect Daniel Libeskind Design Reflects History of Jewish Germany

Aug 31, 2009

The Jewish Museum is a place of documentation and a gesture of reconciliation in Jewish Berlin. Demand for guided tours and educational seminars has doubled since 2001.

The Jewish Museum Berlin — Jüdisches Museum Berlin — in Berlin's Kreuzberg district is one of the most visited museums in Germany's capital. The spectacular design by New York architect Daniel Libeskind attracted 350.000 people to see its empty shell before the exhibits moved in. Many say that the architecture effects them on an emotional level. It is a powerful statement of recognizing the contributions of the Jewish people to German culture, their persecution throughout the centuries and the enormity of the Holocaust.

Permanent Exhibit is Dedicated to 2000 Years of Jewish Culture

The ambitious exhibit of the Jewish Museum covers two millenia of German-Jewish history. It contains Judaic items and artifacts some more than 800 years old. Jews reached what is Germany today as traders with the Roman legions and are first mentioned in a decree from the year 321 issued by Emperor Constantine. Mainz, Worms and Speyer were centers of Jewish culture in Western Europe. Jews became citizens with equal rights in 1871, when the Constitution of the newly founded German Empire removed legal restrictions. Berlin then became a center of Jewish life.

Libeskind Signature Design Makes Powerful Statement

Daniel Libeskind, the son of two Holocaust survivors was born in Poland in 1946. He studied music before taking up architecture, and lives in New York and Berlin. His design was inspired by Arnold Schoenberg and the essays of literary critic Walter Benjamin. From above the zig zag shape of the building resembles a mangled Star of David. Irregular shaped windows, stark unadorned walls, and the "Memory Void", a 20 meters high empty space speak of absence and exile, great loss and sadness. The Museum's Voids refer to "that which can never be exhibited when it comes to Jewish Berlin history: humanity reduced to ashes." (Daniel Libeskind, 2000)

Underground Tunnel Leads to Holocaust Tower and Garden of Exile

A focus point of the museum is the Holocaust Tower, a vertical, bare concrete void with a single shaft of light at the top. Leading to the tower a display of individual stories of Holocaust victims told through pictures, letters, and memorabilia, is one of the museum's most moving exhibits. The Garden of Exile attempts to disorient. 49 concrete stelae rise out of the square plot on a 12° gradient. Russian olive grows on top of the pillars symbolizing hope.

Regular admission: 5 Euros, reduced admission for students, seniors, families, groups.

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