Day Six

Holocaust Resource Center

DAY SIX -- Saturday, March 16
The Jewish Museum of Berlin
The Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany is unlike any building I have ever visited.  Every inch of architecture calls for the visitor to make his/her own interpretation of the features that engage you intellectually and physically.  And suddenly it is clear…the whole building is a perfect marriage between theory, content, and context.

 

Within five minutes of our tour beginning, it was clear how much of an impression the building made on us, particularly the “memory voids” one of the empty spaces that recall the absences resulting from the destruction of Jewish communities throughout Europe:  absences of people and culture, topics not discussed, and lives not lived.  The powerful artistic installation “shaleket” (Hebrew for “fallen leaves”) in the memory void (created by Menashe Kadishman, Via Lewandowsky, and Arnold Dreyblatt) consists of countless metallic “faces” that the visitor is invited to walk on.  This creates an eerie feeling accompanies by an almost musical clanging of metal on metal.

The experience of this museum is certainly transferrable to interpreting other monuments and memorials in Germany.  I highly recommend this museum to everyone.
(Submitted by Michael A. Morris)