Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
already beleaguered position became intolerable. “Crystal Night” - named for the shattered
glass from the attacks on Jewish shops and institutions - resulted in the deaths of at least 36
Berlin Jews, many beaten on the streets while passers-by looked on; the destruction of 23 of
the city's 29 synagogues; and wrecking of hundreds of shops and businesses. Afterwards the
Nazi government fined the German-Jewish community one billion marks - ostensibly to pay
for the damage - and then forcibly “Aryanized” all remaining Jewish businesses, effectively
excluding Jews from economic life. With the outbreak of war in September 1939, Jews were
forced to observe a night-time curfew and forbidden to own radios. Forced transportation of
Jews to the East (mainly occupied Poland) began in February 1940, and September 1941 saw
the introduction of a law requiring Jews to wear the yellow Star of David, heralding the
beginning of mass deportations.
In January 1942, the
Wannsee conference
, held in a western suburb of Berlin (see p.257),
discussed the
Endlösung
or “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Question”, drawing up plans for the
removal of all Jews to the East and, implicitly, their extermination. As the Final Solution began
to be put into effect, daily life for Berlin's Jews grew ever more unbearable: in April they were
banned from public transport, and in September their food rations were reduced. By the
beginning of 1943 the only Jews remaining legally in Berlin were highly skilled workers in the
city's armaments factories, and in February deportation orders began to be enforced for this
group too. Most Berlin Jews were sent to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz concentration camps,
and only a handful survived the war. By the end of the war the combined effects of emigration
and genocide had reduced Berlin's Jewish population by around 96 percent to about 6500;
around 1400 had survived as “U-boats”, hidden by gentile families at great personal risk, and
the rest had somehow managed to evade the final round-ups in precariously legal conditions,
usually by having irreplaceable skills vital to the war effort, or by being married to non-Jews.
Since the war Berlin's Jewish population has doubled to around
twelve thousand
today
- largely by émigrés from the former Soviet Union. It's now the world's fastest-growing Jewish
community and the largest in Germany, boasting eight synagogues. With the renovation of
the
Neue Synagoge
as a cultural centre and the opening of several Jewish cafés,
Oranienburger Strasse has regained a little of its pre-Nazi identity, yet some Jews complain
that the tourist interest in this area and their community has led to a theme-park-like faux
celebration of Jewish life. Jewish insignias have begun to appear where there was never a link,
and restaurants and cultural events pop up simply to provide visitors with stereotypes - local
toy shops even sell
menorah
, the Jewish candelabra. They also argue that although sympathy
and interest in sites associated with Jewish culture and persecution is welcome, if their reason
is to understand the Holocaust rather than simply indulge a ghoulish interest, then the focus
should be on the perpetrators, not the victims.
Meanwhile,
anti-Semitism
in Berlin, especially towards young Jews, appears to be on the
rise, with the number of incidents increasing every year - in one swastikas were scrawled on
the walls of a Jewish nursery school before a smoke bomb was thrown in, though thankfully
the building was empty. These days it is most often the work of disaffected children of
immigrant Muslim families, but all the same,
Gideon Joffe, widely regarded as head of the
city's Jewish community, invites “Germans who say they want an end to the debate about the
Nazi past to wear the…Star of David, so they can experience the anti-Semitism that German
Jews confront on a daily basis.”
Milk and Honey Tours
T
030 61 62 57 61,
W
milkandhoneytours.com.
This operator, which
specializes in tours of Jewish Europe, offers a variety of
first-class guided tours of Jewish Berlin, either on foot
4
and public transport or in a private vehicle. They can also
take you to further-flung sites of Jewish interest,
including concentration camp memorial sites.
me Collectors Room
Auguststr. 68 • Tues-Sun noon-6pm • €6 •
T
030 86 00 85 10,
W
me-berlin.com • S-Oranienburger Strasse
he
me Collectors Room
was conceived and built by chemist and endocrinologist
homas Olbricht to showcase his private art collection - which happens to be among
the most comprehensive in Europe, including works by John Currin, Franz Gertsch,
Marlene Dumas and Gerhard Richter - via a series of alternating exhibitions. he “me”
