Tuesday, September 1
Last night, I had my final visit with Michaela before she gets transported back to her home in Belgium to continue her recovery. My last two days in Berlin will be truly solo: no more trips to the hospital. This certainly hasn’t been the reunion Michaela and I anticipated, but we’ve both adapted to changed circumstances.
This morning, I headed over to the Jewish Museum of Berlin. I’d booked a 10:15 entry time. Admission is free, in keeping with the clear mission of the museum: to educate people about Jewish life and the history of Jews in Germany from the 4th century AD to the present day.
When I arrived, a group of school kids were milling around out front, waiting for their tour to begin. At the entrance, I put my backpack, phone, and purse through a metal detector, checked my backpack in the cloak room, and downloaded the audioguide for the museum onto my phone. I chose English as my language of choice, popped an AirPod in my right ear, and was ready for my app-guided tour of the museum.
The set-up process was easy, clear, and streamlined. From the time I walked in the front door, it took just five minutes.
The app asked if I wanted to take the stairs or an elevator when moving from station to station. Thinking of my training for the Camino, I picked the stairs.
I was ready to begin.
The pathway of the tour couldn’t have been clearer. This was the most user-friendly museum experience I’d ever had, and I was just getting started.
Past the entry way, there was even a phone charging station in case people needed a little boost of power.
The app guided me into a huge room with three massive video screens depicting two drummers playing haunting music from dramatically different places. One drummer was positioned deep underground and the other one was suspended in midair. This installation, “Drummerrsss,” created by Israeli artist Gilad Ratman in 2020, was haunting and evocative. The moment I stepping into the room and heard that drumbeat, I was immersed.
Here’s a fascinating video about the making of this installation (initially posted on the ttt – titel thesen temperamente Facebook page):
As I moved further into the museum, I found myself deeply moved by the architecture of the building itself. The floor and ceiling of the ground floor are slanted and disorienting, completely changing my perspective. I’ve never been so impacted by a building before.
Architect Daniel Libeskind used a zigzag as his core design concept. He wanted the building to symbolize the many shifts of German-Jewish history: “The zigzag shape is a visible demonstration of the ways Jews have moved between acceptance and exclusion. The rupture in civilization caused by the Holocaust was translated into the formal vocabulary of a building.”
Built into the Libeskind’s design are empty spaces called “Voids” to viscerally demonstrate the absence of the murdered Jews. Here’s an example:
Here’s another. This installation, “Fallen Leaves,” seen here from above, is Menashe Kadishman’s representation of the cycle of life: fallen leaves become soil and ultimately awaken to new life. “Fallen Leaves” is dedicated to all victims of war and violence.
We’ll revisit this same installation again, from ground level, later in this post.
Early in the exhibit, I was greeted by this welcome tree. Visitors are invited to add wishes to the tree.
The exhibit that follows establishes the reality of Jewish life in Germany. As one sign explains, “Jews have lived in the territory of present-day Germany since the 4th century, always interconnected with the culture around them. This coexistence has been marked by mutual influence as well as separation and violence.”
I was led through rooms that document the core tenets of Jewish life: the basic laws of Judaism, its holy books, the Torah and the Talmud, what it means to keep kosher, the principles of tzedakah (charity), and the keeping of the Sabbath.
Following the guiding arrows, I entered a long hallway with many listening rooms. I stopped to hear a boy practicing for his bar mitzvah; I paused to take in the sound of the shofar. I slipped onto a cushioned bench in one round red room to listen to a plaintive rendition of the song, Avinu Malkeinu. I began to weep, my cells responding to the music. Whatever I believe about my relationship to Judaism, my body recognized these melodies.
The navigation led me through the history of the Jews in Germany and the changing role of Jews in German life. It explored the beginnings of Zionism and the service of Jews in the German military. A whole room was dedicated to the rise of the Weimar Republic, an era in which Jews seemed to have achieved social equality, while simultaneously, hostility toward them was increasing.
As I sat in a beautifully designed theatre to rest and watch a film about the success, acceptance, and happiness of German Jews during this period—and the concurrent rise of antisemitism—my stomach grew tighter.
I knew what was coming in the next room.
But to get there, I was led down a flight of stairs flanked by a more light-hearted exhibit: Andree Volkmann’s Hall of Fame installation—large illustrated cut-outs of well-known Jews from all walks of life.
After passing through the Hall of Fame, I entered the section of the museum named “Catastrophe.” As I walked into the huge hall documenting the years leading up to the Holocaust, the weight of history and death filled my chest.
The immense first room in “Catastrophe” demonstrates the growing humiliation and abuse of Jews, the desecration of cemeteries and synagogues, the destruction of stores and apartments, the injury and murder.
It explores the ways different German Jews responded to the core question they faced throughout the 1930s: “Should we emigrate of should we endure?”
Between 1933 and 1941, more than half the Jews in Germany managed to emigrate. Most of those who remained were murdered.
This dramatic series of banners cites thousands of daily persecution measures taken against the Jews between 1930 and 1945. Antisemitic laws were implemented methodically, systematically, week by week, month by month, year by year. I found the vastness of the visual representation horrifying. Reading even a fraction of what was on the banners was a punch to the gut.
Signs like this one were everywhere: “No Jews served here.”
This book lists the names of more than 110,000 German Jews murdered by the Nazis. In the preface, the book states, “This memorial book gives back their names, and thus their human dignity, to the people who were murdered. It is at the same time a memorial and a reminder that each and every human life has a name and a singular story.”
The final room in “Catastrophe” features 200 photos taken by two SS officers of Jews deported from Hungary between May and August of 1944. The photos document their arrival and show women, children, old people, and those deemed unfit to work being led to the gas chambers, completely unaware of where they’re headed. The purpose of the photo album? To proudly document the smooth, successful implementation of the genocide at Auschwitz: the Final Solution.
I’ve never seen anything so chilling.
After the display about the death camps, the museum shows what happened to surviving Jews after the War. And the status of Jews in Germany today. A video installation I particularly enjoyed featured a diverse range of German Jews of all ages and stages of life talking about their lives today. After so much death, these German Jews were full of life.
As I started digesting all that I’d seen, heard and felt, I wandered down one last long hallway till I reached the ground-level entrance to Kadishman’s “Fallen Leaves” installation, the one I’d seen at the start of the tour from high above.
It had a whole different impact close up:
Then I actually walked out onto the exhibit itself. Turn up your sound, play the video, and walk out with me. The sound says it all: