Berlin: Jewish Museum and Memorial

[June 14]

During our first full day in Berlin, we ended up spending most of it at the Jewish Museum. With a new lightning bolt-shaped addition designed by Daniel Liebeskind, we wanted to check out the architecture.



The museum is not entirely dedicated to Holocaust history; it covers the entire history of the Jewish race. As you can imagine, this a few thousand years of material and it was impossible to see everything in a few hours. The building itself is huge and has several levels. In the three hours we spent here with Katie, we all took different paths and didn't all see the same things. We had to spend some time just comparing notes.



The museum tried to keep all ages entertained. One video display would "flip" to the next page if you blew a steady stream of breath across the screen. Katie demonstrates above. I tried, but I only felt silly when it didn't work for me. [Dean: This was a really weird way to display information. I assumed that there must be a Jewish tradition of blowing over the pages of a this particular religious text, because why else would they make you go through all the awkward effort of looking silly in public? Unfortunately, there was nothing that suggested such a significance, so... very weird.]

There were several unique areas, like the an outdoor park of tilted columns that made you feel quite dizzy. They also had an installation where you could walk on top of hundreds of metal faces and hear the metal click with each step.



I really liked the architecture in the Liebeskind section. He used all sorts of angled walls and windows so that no area was rectangular.



At the Jewish Memorial, in an entirely different location, we walked around the 2,711 metal towers. Supposedly, the number doesn't symbolize anything. Each tower was a bit different in height and angle, with the center area having the tallest towers. Within the deeper rows, one could get totally lost from their group.

For me, the memorial itself did not have a somber feeling. Children were running through the area playing hide and seek. We also discovered that you could appear to be flying through the columns in some photographs.


Katie flies


Dean and Marita fly

Beneath the columns, we waited in line and went through two security areas to view the display area. Here, they outlined the stories of a few families and individuals who were killed. It was very touching, but at this point, we had already been to the Jewish Museum and it was enough for one week.