November 2000 Berlin's New Jewish Museum By Rabbi Alvin Kass Six years ago I visited Germany for the first time as a guest of the German government. I was part of a fact-finding mission of the New York Board of Rabbis which sought to examine the conditions of life in that country in general, and the position of the Jews in particular. One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the famed Berlin Museum, whose Judaica room was to be replaced by an extension devoted entirely to Jewish civilization. I am glad to say that the edifice has been completed, and what began as a mere adjunct to the Berlin Museum has evolved into a full-fledged national institution. The new museum was recently the subject of a special program on public television. Although the Jewish Museum will not feature a permanent exhibit until September 2001, the building itself, designed by Daniel Liebeskind, has been widely acclaimed and has become a popular tourist attraction in itself. Its zigzag form and angular walls and windows suggest the stormy and violent history of German Jewry especially in recent times. In sharp contrast to the stable, rectangular shape of the Berlin City Museum, the new building induces a sense of loss, even of panic. An above-ground space between the two buildings represents the unspeakably horrible divide that separated Jew from non-Jew in Germany between 1933 and 1945. Notwithstanding the Jewish Museum's unmistakable architectural message, the institution was not designed as a Holocaust memorial. Its purpose is to tell the entire 2000 year history of Jewish life in Germany. Actually the Jewish Museum is only one part of a triangle of three major projects dedicated to the honor of untold millions of victims of Nazi tyranny. The second is an exhibit called the Topography of Terror, which chronicles the notorious exploits of the SS and the Gestapo. Abutting a solitary remnant of the Berlin Wall, adjacent to the site of the former SS Headquarters, this collection of photographs and other relics will eventually be housed in a building yet to be constructed. The third part is a specific Holocaust Memorial to consist of a field of columns adjacent to the Brandenberg Gate. It too remains unbuilt at the present time. To be sure, the Jewish Museum and its sister projects are not without difficulties. From a purely technical standpoint, the Jewish Museum suffers from a faulty air conditioning system as well as too few toilets. More problematical, however, is the fact that the edifice itself is so impressive, it might overwhelm whatever exhibits are housed there. The most serious obstacle to the Museum's future as well as the viability of the other two projects is a growing Holocaust fatigue within the country. Germans are split over the best way to recall the Nazi cataclysm and whether the Museum and its sister projects are for Germans or for the Jews or for both. In spite of everything, the Germany of today is an amazing country. A citadel of astounding dynamism, energy, and creativity, Germany has once more become the dominant power of Europe. That could be a frightening thought given the history of the twentieth century. However, in spite of rumblings in certain quarters, this is very clearly a Holocaust-haunted country, determined to avoid a repetition of the Third Reich's catastrophes in the future. The horrors of the Holocaust are constantly on the minds of the nation's responsible leaders. The Holocaust is also part of the school curriculum, and all students are obligated to visit a concentration camp. The Jewish population of Germany is rapidly increasing and its leaders are sanguine and confident about the future. The State of Israel regards Germany as a close ally with whom its relations are second in importance only to those with the United States. To be sure, nothing can ever undo the Holocaust. Indeed, the architectural space between the Berlin Museum and the Jewish Museum is a permanent symbol of the unbridgeable divide that isolated Jews from their neighbors during the Nazi era. However, those buildings are connected underground and, in the last analysis, we likewise have to achieve a connection between the Jews and Germans of today. By tying together Jewish and German life over many centuries and evoking a sense of what Germany lost of itself in the Holocaust, the new Jewish Museum may make an extraordinarily important contribution in achieving that goal.