00:01Guarded as a potential target,
00:03the Jewish Museum Berlin is under round-the-clock police protection,
00:07telling a broader story about Germany today.
00:09Now we have these chubby ones, anti-terror objects.
00:15The fortification of this, it just makes me sad.
00:20For 25 years, the Jewish Museum Berlin has worked to raise awareness
00:25of how Jewish life and culture are perceived in Germany and around the world.
00:30My life is filled with contradictions, and this is, I think, an essential part of being a Jewish person,
00:37to kind of live with contradictions and have a discussion about it.
00:46A building shaped like a lightning bolt, or a broken Star of David,
00:51it's located in the city where the Nazis planned the murder of some six million European Jews.
01:01Jewish life that existed in Germany before the war was never continued,
01:07because those people simply weren't around anymore.
01:14Some 700,000 people visit the Jewish Museum Berlin each year.
01:19Its permanent exhibition focuses on Jewish history in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day.
01:28Hedy Bagg has been the Museum's director since 2020.
01:32Her predecessor stepped down after intense allegations that the Museum was too critical of Israel.
01:38After the attacks by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent war,
01:42museum staff have seen a new, at times harsher view of topics related to Judaism.
01:52Since October 7, 2023, these issues have once again taken center stage.
01:59But now in a much more negative light.
02:06Back in 2001, at the opening, all Jewish topics had very positive connotations.
02:14But now I can definitely sense that there's also a much stronger negative connotation.
02:21They want to educate, allow debate and remembrance.
02:25A big challenge for the curators, especially when it comes to younger generations.
02:30Addressing the Nazi era is a central focus in Germany's classrooms.
02:36I definitely expect to learn about the Holocaust, because it's the most significant event in Jewish history that I know
02:42of.
02:45I'm excited, and I'm looking forward to learning about the past.
02:50Because, after all, it was a terrible time.
02:53Israeli artist Alona Roday has a different perspective on the exhibition.
02:57For her, the museum is a place of inspiration and also confrontation with her own cultural heritage.
03:06My life is filled with contradictions.
03:09Or living as an Israeli person in the world today, and especially abroad,
03:17is full of contradictions that you have to live with, or let's say complexities.
03:22And this is, I think, an essential part of being a Jewish person, to kind of live with contradictions and
03:30have a discussion about it.
03:35The Nazi era is a central focus of the exhibition.
03:39Beginning in 1933, new laws persecuted the Jewish population and stripped them of their rights.
03:45This exclusion culminated in the systematic murder of about two-thirds of all European Jews at the time.
03:56We're all human beings, after all.
03:58I don't understand how anyone could do something like that to someone just because they're Jewish.
04:03I mean, it's just a religion.
04:05The way the place is built makes it feel oppressive to walk around.
04:11One of five symbolic spaces in the museum, called Voids, contains the installation Shalichet, or Fallen Leaves, by Israeli artist
04:21Minashe Kadishman.
04:22It's made up of more than 10,000 iron discs with faces representing the victims of war and violence, both
04:30in the past and now.
04:34They're faces, you don't want to step on them.
04:37And then when I understood the meaning behind them, it felt a little different too.
04:42And when we were all the way in the back, I wanted to go out through the door, but there
04:47was no exit.
04:48There wasn't a real door.
04:50So I had to walk back again, and there was that clattering, which was supposed to be screams.
04:55And it was kind of, not scary, but you feel a little uneasy.
05:05The building's architect, Daniel Liebeskind, has been honored with the 2026 Premium Imperiale.
05:12The Jewish Museum Berlin was his professional breakthrough.
05:15With it, he created a design whose very form conveys a message.
05:22Buildings have meaning.
05:23Some architects think that buildings are just abstract, you know, abstractions.
05:27They have no meaning.
05:28Well, good luck to them.
05:31Liebeskind's museum is more than simply a work of architecture.
05:35Its zig-zag shape itself tells of German-Jewish history,
05:39and with it the inextricably linked genocide of the Shoah.
05:43This is most evident, and can even be felt physically, in the Holocaust Tower,
05:48one of the empty concrete shafts.
05:56Of course, it's been many, many years since it was constructed,
06:00but to me it feels sort of brand new in its light, in its unexpected spaces.
06:13In the wake of the Holocaust, after 1945, it's a miracle there was any new Jewish life in Germany at
06:19all.
06:20But many of the Jews who moved here did so out of necessity.
06:25Many came from Central Asia, for instance, where they had survived the war, or from the camps, or wherever.
06:36And so camps were set up again to accommodate these people here in Germany.
06:44And they all actually planned to move on from there,
06:51to wherever life would be better for Jews, and not in Germany.
07:00Later, in the 1990s, more than 100,000 Jews emigrated from the former Eastern Bloc to a reunified Germany,
07:08reinvigorating Jewish life here.
07:15Now there are more synagogues in Germany, more Jewish schools, more Jewish life, and also many very alternative scenes.
07:28But Jewish institutions in Germany remain under constant police protection.
07:33Jewish life in the country, and across Europe, is still under threat.
07:37And the Jewish Museum Berlin is no exception.
07:41In Germany, but also generally in Europe, you would walk in the street in a city you don't know,
07:48and all of a sudden you see policemen, and you see some kind of, like, little housing and stuff,
07:55and you know that it's a Jewish place.
07:57And the fact that this is a sign that it's a Jewish institution, school, or museum, or a synagogue,
08:05that makes me sad, for sure.
08:09The museum is marking its 25th anniversary with a special exhibition titled The Opposite of Now.
08:16It includes Elona Roday's installation Above and Beyond, a tribute to the Wailing Wall,
08:21an important site of Jewish worship in Jerusalem.
08:24The work is an attempt to counter the feeling of oppressiveness dominating much of the present day.
08:33Crisis is maybe a moment, but it's kind of a big moment that has been going on for more than
08:41two years.
08:42A feeling of big frustration, and looking for other ways to deal with reality in a way to create an
08:51alternative reality,
08:52is one method of resistance to the harsh reality that is currently in the Middle East and projecting on the
09:01rest of the world.
09:03The Jewish Museum Berlin is not meant to be a place of silent remembrance, but of active participation.
09:09At a time when the State of Israel is being sharply criticized globally,
09:14the museum is showing a different view, a Jewish view, of Jewish life in Germany.
09:19I see the museum as a space between the Jewish and the non-Jewish worlds,
09:26a place where they can meet, and then we can affect something within the people who come here.
09:33The Jewish Museum Berlin, an iconic building unlikely to leave anyone unmoved.
09:39It's a place that for 25 years has opened up new perspectives,
09:44invited visitors to engage with Jewish culture, and sparked an encouraged discussion.
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