Jewish Heritage In Berlin Through Our Lens Entrance To Jewish Cemetery

Michal&Eli When the New Synagogue was consecrated on Rosh Hashanah in 1866, it was the largest synagogue in Europe, with 3,200 seats. Capped with one of the most spectacular domes in Berlin, the New Synagogue's design was inspired by the Moorish architecture of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. The Neue Synagogue was damaged on Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938), when Nazi looters rampaged across Germany, burning synagogues and smashing the few Jewish shops and homes left in the country. It was desecrated and set on fire, but avoided major damage thanks to the efforts of Wilhelm Krützfeld, the local police chief. The synagogue was, however, heavily damaged by Allied bombing in It was then torched by Berliners in 1944 and finally demolished by the Communist East Germans in the 1950s. It wasn't until the mid-1980s that the East German government restored this great landmark, but the bulk of the synagogue was never rebuilt. In its place is an empty plot of land on which is marked the original layout of the building, providing a disturbing insight into the destruction of a way of life that used to be.

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Transit to life – Transit to Death Designed by artist and eyewitness Frank Meisler, the sculpture depicts children about to board a train as part of the “Kindertransport,” which is how Meisler himself survived. Many of those children never saw their parents again. Michal&Eli

Memory Blocks Artist Gunter Demnig builds a Holocaust memorial one stone at a time Read more: places/stolpersteine.html#ixzz15g2x1tcO Michal&Eli

This deportation memorial was erected fifty years after the beginning of deportations of Berlin's Jewish population to concentration camps. The Polish artist Karol Broniatowski created this concrete block embedded with human silhouettes representative of the passage taken to the rail tracks for deportation in Michal&Eli

Starting on October 18, 1941 the adjacent goods station until February 1945 was one of the major sites of deportation of the Berlin Jews. Michal&Eli

The memorial "Track 17" was installed at the deportation ramp at the Grunewald train station. The names of concentration camp destinations are listed on the tracks along with dates and numbers of passengers. The memorial is reached by stairs up from the station. Michal&Eli

Memorial to few hundred non-Jewish women demonstrated for over a week (1943) in front of a building in Rosen Street, Berlin, where about 1500 Jewish men and children had been detained.All attempts by the Nazi Gestapo failed to intimidate them, even threats to fire into the crowd. Within two weeks all the prisoners were set free, and 25 men were even returned from the death camps at Auschwitz. Michal&Eli

Eisenman’s design is quite unique and has drawn both praise and criticism. Occupying about 205,000 square feet (19,000 square meters) of space near the Brandenburg Gate and just a short distance from where the ruins of Hitler’s bunker is buried, the Berlin Holocaust Memorial is made up of 2,711 gray stone slabs that bear no markings, such as names or dates. Michal&Eli

Photography And Presentation By Michal & Eli Michal&Eli Music Nabucco, Overture