New Jewish Museum in Munich

June 12, 2007

Finally, in 2001, the city began planning the construction of a new museum to honor the memory and tell the difficult story of the relationship between Munich and its Jewish community. The museum is the centerpiece of an entire complex built at Jacob's Square near the city center, which also includes a new synagogue opened last November, a school, and a Jewish community center. The entire project cost some €70 million (US $95 million) and took several years to complete.

According to one employee, the museum has received between 600 and 700 visitors daily since its opening on March 22, 2007. She also said that reaction to the museum has been mixed, with the detractors saying that the museum is too small and doesn't have enough on display. However, this sentiment only shows that there is a desire among Munich's residents to learn more about the difficult past of their city.

The museum is done in a very modern, clean approach. Glass panels surround the bottom of the structure allowing people to see inside from all directions. Several quotes and pieces of information are written on the outside for passersby to read. Some people have also placed notes and stacked stones on the Jerusalem stone exterior of the adjacent synagogue.

The four-story museum is some 9,688 square feet (900 square meters). The bottom floor houses the permanent exhibit, where visitors enter to hear voices of Munich's Jewish community recounting personal stories from their past. Spread across the floor is a map of the city with several stands containing information about events that happened at each of the locations. Picking up the stands illuminates a picture on the wall corresponding to that particular event. A time line of events in the Jewish community in Munich runs the length of one wall and records events back to AD 1229, most of them tragic. Also on display are various items from different Jewish holidays and rituals, including a shofar (ram’s horn), Passover seder plate, menorah, and more.

The next floor up is the museum entry with a restaurant and gift shop. The floor above that contains the temporary exhibits of the museum, where several rare Jewish religious and educational books are currently displayed. At the end of the exhibition hall is a computer room where visitors can learn about different aspects of the history of the Jewish community in Munich. Most of the information, however, is in German, but the picture galleries are easily understood by all. The top floor, also a temporary exhibit, currently showcases paintings that were stolen by the Nazis from a wealthy Jewish family in Munich. There is also a reading room containing several hundred volumes in various languages about all facets of Jewish life.

While the museum is nothing on the grand scale such as the ones in Washington, DC or Berlin, for Munich, it is a step in the right direction toward coming to terms with and educating people about its troubled past. With Holocaust deniers becoming more vociferous and acts of anti-Semitism on the rise in Europe, this kind of education is essential if another Holocaust is to be prevented.

By Will King
Correspondent, Israel Mosaic Radio

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