Sep 29, 2009, 17:26 GMT
Berlin - One of the German capital's newest monuments is in the shape of a broken Star of David and since its completion has become one of its landmark features.
The Jewish Museum Berlin on Lindenstrasse was designed by architect Daniel Libeskind who invested great thought into the look of the building's exterior. Its opening in 2001 counts among the landmarks of Germany's post-war history.
Berlin was reinstated as the German capital and seat of parliament in the 1990s. The German government decided to construct a building of major symbolism in the city which had once been the capital of the Nazi Third Reich that had tried to extinguish Europe's Jews.
Part of the Jewish museum's permanent exhibition is dedicated to the suffering of Jews during Germany's National Socialist regime.
The 89-million-dollar museum project was followed by the inauguration in 2005 of the controversial Holocaust Memorial which was designed by Peter Eisenman and is situated between the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz. At the time some of Eisenman's critics said Libeskind's impressive museum building was the real monument to Europe's murdered Jews.
May 2010 will see the opening of the contemporary documentary centre the Topography of Terror on the site of the former headquarters of the Gestapo and SS.
With the construction of the Jewish Museum, Libeskind - who is regarded as a metaphysicist among architects - has managed to translate history into structural design.
Libeskind was born in Lodz in Poland in 1946 and later emigrated with his parents to Israel. Later he assumed American citizenship. His intention as he described before the museum's completion was to create a building that would stand as a 'symbol of the difficult German-Jewish relationship.'
Germany's former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder once said the museum not only illustrated the terrible history of Jews in Germany, 'but also its fertile history.'
The late president of the Council of Jews in Germany, Paul Spiegel, also expressed a similar opinion. He placed emphasis on the new interpretation of Jewish life in Germany. He believed later generations should leave the museum with more knowledge and not just with the feeling of shock.
The zinc-clad building with its windows that look like convulsive lightning bolts cut into the exterior appears to be an avant-garde sculpture. It is a 'walk-in sculpture' with contorted and warped corridors like a 'labyrinth of memory.'
On completion the building attracted global attention and drew enormous numbers of visitors long before its collection of artefacts was installed. There were, however, also doubts expressed in Germany's museum community about how difficult it would be to display the exhibition given the building's very eccentric interior design.
An example of the unique design are what Libeskind calls 'Voids' - empty spaces extending the building's full height and length. The voids recall the losses suffered by Europe's Jews during the Holocaust.
The museum's director since its inception is the former US Treasury Secretary, W Michael Blumenthal. He was born in the town of Oranienburg north of Berlin in 1926.
Over the years the management has succeeded in gathering together a remarkable permanent exhibition and in presenting special exhibitions. The Jewish Museum is one of the most visited public institutions in Berlin with over 700,000 guests every year. Autumn 2008 marked the occasion of the five-millionth visitor.
The museum's collection contains several thousand objects that document the more than 2,000-year history of Jews in Germany from its beginnings during the ancient Roman era up until the present day.
Among the precious items on display is a handwritten draft of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It also contains one of the most important collections of its kind in Europe; artefacts relating to Palestine containing maps and descriptions of the Holy Land as well as drawings and maps of Jerusalem from the 15th century until today.
The special exhibitions the museum has hosted have dealt with the centennial of Tel Aviv's founding, 'Theft and Restitution. Cultural Artefacts in Jewish Ownership from 1933 to the Present,' 'Cliches of Jews and Others,' the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sigmund Freud
and 'The Oven Builders of Auschwitz.'
The museum has also put on public display over 1,000 interviews with German-speaking contemporary witnesses of the Holocaust. They were documented by film director Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation.
This is not the first Jewish museum Berlin has had. On 24 January 1933 - just days before Hitler's assumption of power -- a Jewish museum opened in Oranienburger Strasse directly beside the New =Synagogue. After the November Pogrom of 1938 the Nazis forced its closure.
After the Second World War West Berlin had a small and sparse museum in the Martin-Gropius-Bau exhibition hall and in a former lecture theatre in the Berlin Museum.
Internet: www.jmberlin.de.
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