Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Jüdischer Friedhof
Schönhauser Allee 23-25 • Mon-Thurs 8am-4pm, Fri 8am-1pm; male visitors should keep their heads covered, skullcaps loaned free at
the entrance • U-Bahn Senefelderplatz
he
Jüdischer Friedhof
, Prenzlauer Berg's Jewish cemetery, opened when space ran
out at the Grosse Hamburger Strasse cemetery (see p.77). More than twenty
thousand people are buried here, including painter Max Liebermann, publisher
Leopold Ullstein, composer Giacomo Meyerbeer and German-Jewish banker Joseph
Mendelssohn (son of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn). But for most, this last
resting place is an anonymous one: in 1943 many of the gravestones were smashed
and a couple of years later the trees under which they had stood were used by the
SS to hang deserters found hiding in the cemetery during the final days of the war.
Today many of the stones have been restored and repositioned, and a memorial stone
near the cemetery entrance entreats visitors: “You stand here in silence, but when you
turn away do not remain silent.”
Wasserturm
From Senefelder Platz, Kollwitzstrasse runs north through quiet and almost bucolic
residential streets. Adding to the relaxed atmosphere is a small urban park, a block
to the east, around the huge red-brick
Wasserturm
(water tower). Constructed in
1877 by the English Waterworks Company on the site of a pre-industrial windmill,
the 30m-high cylindrical brick water tower, known as “Dicker Hermann”, is
infamous as a site of Nazi atrocities: once the party came to power the SA turned
the basement into a torture chamber and the bodies of 28 of their victims were later
found in the underground pipe network. A memorial stone on Knaackstrasse
commemorates them: “On this spot in 1933 decent German resistance fighters
became the victims of fascist murderers. Honour the dead by striving for a peaceful
world.” During GDR times the tower was used to store canned fish but was later
abandoned to became a “playground” for local kids. Today the refurbished tower is
home to much-coveted wedge-shaped apartments (formerly belonging to the tower's
operators), while the underground reservoir space is home to sporadic art and music
events (see
W
singuhr.de).
8
Prenzlauer Berg Museum
Prenzlauer Allee 227-228 • Mon-Fri 9am-6pm • Free •
T
030 42 40 10 97 • U-Bahn Senefelderplatz
Spread across the first floor of a former school, the small but lively
Prenzlauer Berg
Museum
documents the history of the district and its mainly poor working-class
inhabitants from the nineteenth century to today. he permanent exhibition consists
mainly of photos and text (German only) displayed along school-like corridors, though
a couple of large rooms and a separate building across the courtyard are occasionally
given over to more modern, multimedia exhibitions on local themes.
Synagoge Rykestrasse
Rykestr. 53 • Open for services only: Nov-March Fri 6pm; April-Oct Fri 7pm, Sat 9.30am •
W
synagoge-rykestrasse.de
Built by Johann Hoeniger at the start of the twentieth century, the gorgeous
Neoclassical
Synagoge Rykestrasse
(inaugurated in 1904) is one of Germany's oldest
and biggest - and one of Berlin's loveliest - synagogues. he building survived
Kristallnacht
in 1938 as it was located between “Aryan” apartment buildings, although
precious Torah scrolls were damaged and rabbis and congregation members were
deported to Sachsenhausen. he synagogue was also used as stables during the war, but
was finally restored to its former glory by architects Ruth Golan and Kay Zareh in
2007, who used black-and-white photographs and a €4-million budget to lavishly
recreate the remarkable original.
OPPOSITE
PRENZLAUER BERG >
