Jewish Museum of Berlin

---

It would be hard to overestimate the impact of the architecture of this museum. We entered through an 18th (?) century grand house and were then directed down a long set of zigzag stairs to a series of underground corridors labeled “axis of exile” and “axis of the holocaust”. At the end of the underground space, a long set of stairs rises to the top floor of a connected building that resembles nothing so much as a jagged scar when viewed from above.

Harsh angles and irregular shapes dominate the entire space. Long narrow windows “slash” across outer walls at times intersecting other windows diagonally. A sunken, trapezoidal “garden of exile” at the upper end of the “axis of exile,” contains 49 regularly-spaced, square columns that rise obliquely 15 or 20 feet from a sloped, cobbled floor. Interrupting the ‘narrative’ flow are large empty spaces, what the architect called “voids,” left to be filled by visitors’ memories and imaginations. One such space, the “memory void” spirals around and culminates in a 3-story-tall, light-filled, trapezoidal space the floor of which is covered with over 10,000 stylized faces cut from steel plates of varying thickness. Rising from the end of the “axis of the holocaust” is another void, the “holocaust tower”, another irregularly shaped “empty” space bounded by 50’ tapered concrete slab walls broken only by a narrow opening that admitted light which seemed to struggle to make it all the way to the bottom.

Their telling of the story of the Jews of Berlin and those that came under the power of the National Socialists is very effective. The large narratives of those who fled, those who were killed, and those who survived to keep alive the traditions and cultures of European Jewry are told through individual stories, illustrated or represented by their belongings. There are family candlesticks, confiscated and warehoused by the Nazis, and recovered after the war by a surviving daughter who had fled to the US, and the sewing machine of a tailor who was arrested and murdered in one of the camps but whose wife and daughter survived the war in Berlin. And, there is the blanket of Dr Leo Sheuer who spent 15 months in a hole in the ground in the backyard of a former patient who was willing to shelter him.

The upper floors, “the axis of continuity,” tell the very long story of Jewish life in Berlin from their first arrival in significant numbers during the Middle Ages, through the wars and into the post-war era. There is room after room of religious objects, manuscripts, paintings, and uniforms and medals of Jews who had served in the various armies of the emperors and kaisers. Special sections relate the impact of the Enlightment on Judaism and Jews on the Enlightenment, and detail the twists and turns of the Zionist movement. The curators also document the rise of National Socialism, its racial policies, and their impact on Berlin’s Jews. It was interesting and quite instructive to see the 15-year long ascendancy of National Socialism and Adolf Hitler as one horrific episode in a centuries-long history that included periods of acceptance and flourishing as well as other times of oppression and devastation (and everything in between).

---

As rich and variegated as this narrative was however, it was still the voids, and in particular the “memory void”, meant to stand for the Jews who were and are missing, those deported, exiled or murdered, that still reverberates for me. I am not sure what it means, but the places that evoked instant tears and a “stab” of sadness were the empty places - the holocaust tower, the garden of exile, and the memory void. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, it felt like I could sense the presence and hear the murmuring of those who were missing. It was a bit eerie.

On reflection, we both feel like our visit was a valuable part of our pilgrimage. This is a marvelous museum, not to be missed if at all possible.

---

Photos

"Shalekhet - Fallen Leaves"
by Menashe Kadishman