Jewish Museum Berlin
The Jewish Museum Berlin was opened in 2001 and is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. On of floor space, the museum presents the history of the Jews in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day, with new focuses and new scenography. It consists of three buildings, two of which are new additions specifically built for the museum by architect Daniel Libeskind. German-Jewish history is documented in the collections, the library and the archive, and is reflected in the museum's program of events.
From its opening in 2001 to December 2017, the museum had over eleven million visitors and is one of the most visited museums in Germany.
Opposite the building ensemble, the W. Michael Blumenthal Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin was builtalso after a design by Libeskindin 2011/2012 in the former flower market hall. The archives, library, museum education department, a lecture hall and the Diaspora Garden can all be found in the academy.
History
The first Jewish Museum in Berlin was founded on 24 January 1933, under the leadership of Karl Schwartz, six days before the Nazis officially gained power. The museum was built next to the Neue Synagoge on Oranienburger Straße and, in addition to curating Jewish history, also featured collections of modern Jewish art. Schwartz intended the museum as a means to revitalise Jewish creativity, and to demonstrate that Jewish history was living history. The museum's art collection was also seen as a contribution to German art history and one of the last exhibitions to be held was a retrospective of the German impressionist, Ernst Oppler in 1937. To reflect this focus on living history, the entrance hall of the museum both contained busts of prominent German Jews, such as Moses Mendelssohn and Abraham Geiger, and also a number of works by contemporary Jewish artists such as Arnold Zadikow and Lesser Ury.On 10 November 1938, during the 'November Pogroms', known as Kristallnacht, the museum was shut down by the Gestapo, and the museum's inventory was confiscated. In 1976 a "Society for a Jewish Museum" formed and, three years later, the Berlin Museum, which chronicled the city's history, established a Jewish Department, but already, discussions about constructing a new museum dedicated to Jewish history in Berlin were being held.
In 1988, the Berlin government announced an anonymous competition for the new museum's design, with a jury chaired by Josef Paul Kleihues. A year later, Daniel Libeskind's design was chosen from among 189 submissions by the committee for what was then planned as a "Jewish Department" for the Berlin Museum. While other entrants proposed cool, neutral spaces, Libeskind offered a radical, zigzag design, which earned the nickname "Blitz".
In 1991, Berlin's government temporarily canceled the project to finance its bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics. Six months later the decision was reversed and construction on the $65 million extension to the Berlin Museum began in November 1992. The empty museum was completed in 1999 and attracted over 350,000 people before it was filled and opened on 9 September 2001.
Design
The Jewish Museum Berlin is located in what was West Berlin before the fall of the Wall. Essentially, it consists of two buildingsa baroque old building, the "Kollegienhaus" and a new, deconstructivist-style building by Libeskind. The two buildings have no visible connection above ground. The Libeskind building, consisting of about, is a twisted zig-zag and is accessible only via an underground passage from the old building.For Libeskind,
The new design, which was created a year before the Berlin Wall came down, was based on three conceptions that formed the museum's foundation: first, the impossibility of understanding the history of Berlin without understanding the enormous intellectual, economic and cultural contribution made by the Jewish citizens of Berlin, second, the necessity to integrate physically and spiritually the meaning of the Holocaust into the consciousness and memory of the city of Berlin. Third, that only through the acknowledgement and incorporation of this erasure and void of Jewish life in Berlin, can the history of Berlin and Europe have a human future.A line of "Voids", empty spaces about tall, slices linearly through the entire building. Such voids represent "That which can never be exhibited when it comes to Jewish Berlin history: Humanity reduced to ashes."
In the basement, visitors first encounter three intersecting, slanting corridors named the "Axes." Here a similarity to Libeskind's first buildingthe Felix Nussbaum Hausis apparent, which is also divided into three areas with different meanings. In Berlin, the three axes symbolize three paths of Jewish life in Germanycontinuity in German history, emigration from Germany, and the Holocaust.
The second axis connects the Museum proper to the Garden of Exile, whose foundation is tilted. The Garden's oleaster grows out of reach, atop 49 tall pillars. The third axis leads from the Museum to the Holocaust Tower, a tall empty silo. The bare concrete Tower is neither heated nor cooled, and its only light comes from a small slit in its roof. The Jewish Museum Berlin was Libeskind's first major international success.
In recent years, Libeskind has designed two structural extensions: a covering made of glass and steel for the "Kollegienhaus" courtyard, and the W. Michael Blumenthal Academy of the Jewish Museum in a rectangular, 1960s flower market hall on the opposite side of the street.
In 2016, a jury appointed by the Jewish Museum Berlin awarded the first prize in an architectural competition for a new €3.44 million children's museum for 3 to 12 year-olds to Olson Kundig Architects; the second prize was awarded to the Berlin firm Staab Architekten and third prize to Michael Wallraff of Vienna. The children's museum opened on June 27, 2021 and is housed in the W. Michael Blumenthal Academy.
Exhibitions
Permanent exhibition
The new core exhibition entitled "Jewish Life in Germany: Past and Present" opened on 23 August 2020. Covering more than 3,500 square meters, it tells the story of Jews in Germany from their beginnings to the present day from a Jewish perspective.The exhibition is divided into five historical chapters spanning from the beginnings of Jewish life in Ashkenaz, through the emancipation movement, the Enlightenment, and its failure, to the present. The largest space is dedicated to National Socialism and the chapter After 1945, where topics such as restitution and reparation, the relationship to Israel and Russian-speaking immigration from 1990 onwards are the central themes. As a "final chorus," the video installation "Mesubin" brings the polyphony of contemporary Jewish together. Eight thematic rooms deal with religious aspects of Judaism and its lived practice, with the museum's family collections, and with art and music. What is sacred in Judaism? How is Shabbat celebrated? What is the sound of Judaism? In addition to original objects, the exhibition presents a wide variety of audio-visual media, virtual reality, art and interactive games.
The previous permanent exhibition
The previous permanent exhibition "Two Millennia of German Jewish History" was on display from September 2001 to December 2017. It presented Germany through the eyes of the Jewish minority. The exhibition began with displays of medieval settlements along the Rhine, in particular in Speyer, Worms and Mayence. The Baroque period was regarded through the lens of Glikl bas Judah Leib, who left a diary detailing her life as a Jewish business woman in Hamburg. The intellectual and personal legacies of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn were next; both figures were flanked by depictions of Jews in court and country. The Age of Emancipation in the nineteenth century was presented as a time of optimism, achievement and prosperity, though setbacks and disappointments were displayed as well. German-Jewish soldiers fighting for their country in World War I stood at the beginning of the twentieth century. One focus of the exhibition was Berlin and its development into a European metropolis. The Jews living here as merchants and entrepreneurs, scientists and artists, were pioneers of the modern age.In the section on Nazis, emphasis was placed on the ways in which Jews reacted to the increasing discrimination against them, such as founding Jewish schools and social services. After the Holocaust, 250,000 survivors waited in "Displaced Persons" camps for the possibility to emigrate. At the same time, small Jewish communities in West and East were forming. Towards the end of the exhibition, two major Nazi trials of the post-war period were examinedthe Frankfurt Auschwitz trial and the Majdanek trial in Düsseldorf. The exhibition tour concluded with an audio installation of people who grew up in Germany reporting on their childhood and youth after 1945. A new chapter of Jewish life in Germany began with them.