Judisches Museum Berlin

Jüdisches Museum is a museum in Berlin which spans two thousand years of German Jewish civilization. The Museum was originally situated in Oranienburger Strasse in 1933 but to Nazi interposition it had to be closed in 1938. The idea to reestablish the defunct museum was first mooted in 1971, the idea took the shape of Association for a Jewish Museum in 1975. Three years later the Jewish department of Berlin Museum was reopened; and subsequently in 1999 the Jewish Museum Berlin was recognized as an independent establishment.

The building of the Jüdisches Museum is most unique because the design refuses to be relegated to a mere public display, rather it seeks to tell a tale- a heart wrenching and engaging tale of the Jews in Germany.

An aerial view of the building gives a zig-zag line, which resembles a thunderbolt thus the name 'blitz', which means the same in German. The central building of the Museum is covered with zinc plating and the windows appear no more than arbitrary lines; in actuality the lines trace the important Jewish sites. The building cannot be accessed from any part of the street. It can be entered only via the building standing next to it, the building houses German history. This is to show that German history and Jewish history are inextricable and both violent as well as secretive. The hallways in the main building are known as different axes- The Axis of Death, the Axis of Exile and the Axis of Continuity. The Axis of Death leads to the Holocaust Tower, which is an empty, concrete tower.

There is another tower called the Memory Void which symbolizes those who suffered the experience of the Holocaust. Shalechet or the fallen leaves installation by Menashe Kadishman, a famous Israeli sculptor and painter, fills up the emptiness in the room with 10,000 iron faces.