The orange-roofed building is the original Jewish museum, opened in 1933, six days before Hitler came to power. The Nazi’s closed in on Kristalnacht and confiscated its contents.
The zig-zag gray extension was created by Daniel Libeskind. Construction began in 1992.
Jews living in the countryside could not remain anonymous so were forced to move to the city. These signs from country villages all say, “Jews unwelcome here.”
As of 1933 Jewish dentists In the city could only treat Jewish patients. They could advertise themselves only as dental assistants. Like all Jewish professionals they had to add Israel as a middle name and put a yellow star on the left of their sign.
One of the “Void voids” in the museum. Unheated, lit only by a slit twenty-four meters above, it suggests great loss.
The E. T. A. Hoffman garden, built on tilted cobblestone ground, consists of a square, seven columns on a side. It is meant to be somewhat disorienting. The columns are filled with soil. Trees grow above.
Another void, unheated, lit only by natural light from above, is paved by more than 10,000 open-mouthed faces cut from heavy iron plates. Walking on them produces a sort of metalic agony. The artist is Menashe Kadishman who named it Fallen Leaves.
Alice Haarburger’s 1930 self-portrait. She was deported to the Riga ghetto in 1941 on her fiftieth birthday. She was shot a few months later.
LIbeskind designed the museum along three axes: The axis of exile, the axis of the Holocaust, and the axis of continuity, which this wedding photo represents.
