First impressions of the museum: security. Police outside. Airport-style screenings inside.
Then warmth. Although Claire warned me that museums in Berlin are not air-conditioned to the refrigerator temperatures favoured by Australian galleries, I had chosen to wear jeans. The museum was warm and slightly stuffy and so were my legs.
The Jewish Museum is like a guided tour through the history of Jewish life in Germany. A whole floor is dedicated to the Holocaust. The burden of guilt that Germany bears is very much apparent. The exhibition gives an overview of the Holocaust but then focuses on the micro-details of the lives of individuals. The stories told and objects displayed are often just ordinary, even mundane aspects of people's lives... but each one ends in deportation to a concentration camp, and most frequently, death at the hands of the Nazis. There's something devastating about looking at the cutlery that belonged to a family destined for the gas chambers. The photos are the hardest to look at because so many of the people in them look like my family, or people I know. The minutiae of the displays, with their glimpses into the everyday of German Jews, somehow illustrates the scale and indiscriminate nature of the murders.
The museum trail begins on the top floor, with the earliest evidence of Jewish life in Germany. As one descends through the museum, one is taken on the aforementioned tour of Jewish life and culture in Germany. It seems to me that the idea is to combat anti-semitism, not just by confronting the relentless persecution of European Jews throughout the centuries, but also by celebrating the richness of Jewish culture.
Below: Details of the paintings.