Germany's central Jewish archive reopens in Heidelberg
September 14, 2021
The archive contains essential collections on postwar Jewish life in Germany. The Central Council of Jews in Germany has said the archive serves to foster understanding of Judaism to help avert "dangerous prejudices."
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The Central Archive for the History of Jews in Germany reopened at its new location on the site of the former Landfried tobacco factory in downtown Heidelberg on Tuesday.
Founded in 1987, the archive contains the files of Jewish communities throughout Germany as well as literature about Judaism including documents from before the Nazi period and the Holocaust.
Previously, the archive's holdings had been on display at several locations in Heidelberg.
The collection in Heidelberg includes minutes of meetings and information about celebrations within the community as well as documents such as letters from Jewish soldiers from World War I, and reports on the health of Holocaust survivors in the postwar years.
Josef Schuster, the president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, said the archive is a great treasure in that it preserves the memory of Jewish life in Germany.
"Such an archive is of central importance in order to make sure of one's own past," Schuster said. Noting the archive is open to all, he added, "a lack of knowledge about a minority in particular leads to dangerous prejudices."
Young, Jewish, German, and on the move
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The archive's place in modern Germany
The archive itself holds nearly 2,000 linear meters (656 feet) of files, which have come to the collection mainly from Jewish communities, associations and individuals in the postwar period.
A similar collection existed before the rise of National Socialism in Germany but was destroyed in 1938. The Nazis made use of the archive's information in the persecution and murder of Jews in Germany.
Today, the Central Archive receives funding from Germany's Federal Ministry of the Interior, which has also made hiring new archive staff possible. German news agency dpa reports the archive receives €900,000 ($1.06 million) annually, cementing its place in Germany's present and ongoing culture of remembrance.
Head of the archive Ittai Joseph Tamari said the archive is in the process of digitalizing its collections.
20 years of Berlin's Jewish Museum
The Jewish Museum opened in Berlin 20 years ago with a new extension designed by US star architect Daniel Libeskind.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Henkelmann
Unusual floor plan
It took a long time before everyone involved agreed on what the new Jewish Museum should look like. The baroque city palace was to be extended by a new building. Star architect Daniel Libeskind submitted a very extravagant design in 1989. Construction work began in 1992. Nine years and a few disagreements later, the new building was inaugurated.
Image: Reimer Wulf/akg-images/picture-alliance
Baroque entrance
Originally, Libeskind's extension was only supposed to be a section of the museum. But then things turned out differently, and the pretty Baroque palace became the designated entrance, complete with a ticket counter, shop and café.
With the museum, Daniel Libeskind created a new landmark for Berlin. The zinc-clad building's façade is punctuated by seemingly randomly distributed columns, and its jagged ground plan is like a broken Star of David. The building's architecture symbolizes the difficult process of dealing with the Holocaust, and the gap it tore in German-Jewish history.
Image: picture-alliance/Eibner-Pressefoto
Keen public interest
Two years before the opening, visitors were invited to tour the building at Lindenstrasse 9-14 in Berlin's Kreuzberg district. Almost 350,000 people visited the empty new building and marveled at the architecture.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Henkelmann
Intersecting axes
Often enough, museum buildings are very straightforward structures; even if the architecture is magnificent, they're mainly designed to highlight the exhibits. Libeskind took the radical approach of creating spaces and axes that tell stories on their own. The above photo shows the intersecting axes of exile and the Holocaust.
Image: Steffen Kugler/dpa/picture-alliance
Sparse Holocaust Tower
The architecture stands for itself: dark stairwells, empty spaces, crooked walls. Paths fork and lead outside to freedom, on shaky ground to foreign lands, exile. The Holocaust axis ends in a tower. Light shines from a narrow slit high above. Visitors who stand there in the dark feel as if they are in a dungeon. Such a space needs no furnishings.
Image: Jason Langley/imageBROKER/picture alliance
Garden of Exile
49 stone monuments planted with trees stand on sloping ground in a garden that is not visible from the outside. The stele in the middle is filled with soil from Jerusalem, the others with soil from Berlin. The garden is meant to let visitors experience exile: Visitors can feel unsteady because of its sloping ground, and the concrete pillars limit people's view.
Image: Daniel Kalker/picture alliance
Back to the light
The light-flooded glass courtyard, also designed by Daniel Libeskind, was added to the baroque palace in 2007. The roof spans the courtyard of the U-shaped old building and rests on steel girders. They are representative of real trees and meant to recall the Hebrew "sukkah" (leaf hut) where Jews found shelter from the cold, wind and rain in the desert during their flight from Egypt.