Il Judisches Museum Berlin, Jewish Museum of Berlin, is located next to the former Berlin History Museum, which is accessed through an underground tunnel.
The building, built by architect Daniel Libesckind, is a great example of modern architecture: the design, shape, style and interior seem to be a metaphor for the tragedy that millions of Jews suffered during the Holocaust.
Seen from above, the building is shaped like a lightning bolt, often interpreted as a broken Star of David, and its minimal construction, with its steel walls, is loaded with symbolism.
The building, called Between the lines from Libeskind, has 3 routes at its base:
- la road of exclusion leading to the Holocaust Tower, an empty and dark 24-meter tower;
- la road to exile leading to the ETA Hoffman garden, a forest of sloping concrete columns;
- i Void, empty rooms with black walls that symbolize the destruction of Jewish culture.
During the walk, the visitor is constantly invited to reflect and to remember the Jewish people and their millenary history in Germany.
The visit develops through thirteen historical periods that retrace the German-Jewish culture from the Middle Ages to the present day and the theme of exile and the beginning of a new life in other lands with particular attention to the forced exodus of German Jews is at the center of the exhibition.
In the museum there are also a rich library, an archive of over 700 dossiers of documents and photographs relating to some Jewish families from the XNUMXth century to the present, and a Judaica collection (Judaica-Sammlung) of everyday objects. In the museum there are also numerous interactive and multimedia spaces that describe the close relationships between Jewish and German history, such as the high participation of German Jewish soldiers in the First World War.
Finally, the Judisches Museum organizes numerous events, periodic exhibitions, conferences, concerts, workshops and screenings.
