Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Jewish History Musuem

Berlin was the centre where the Nazis rose to power and as a result of that growth, resulted in numerous massacres, with the biggest population affected being Jews.

One of the must dos would be to visit the Memorial to the Murder Jews of Europe, which is free. 

Also known as the Holocaust Memorial and designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold, it consists of a 19,000-square-metre site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. 

From the location where I arrived at, it looked pretty uniform in height, however as I walked down along the rows, some of these concrete slabs were taller than I am. 

It's a pretty grim feeling walking through the rows of cement blocks, and I wonder if each block represented a collective of individuals that may had died as a result of the Holocaust, since each block resembled graves.

The other place worth visiting is the Jewish History Musuem.

Opened in 2001, it is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. Built on 3,500 square metres of floor space (over 3 buildings, pictured here is only 1 of them), the museum presents the history of Jews in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day, with new focuses and new scenography.

The start of the exhibition arrival space was quite poignant.

The architect Daniel Libeskind created a building that played with axis, slanting corridors, slopes, light and shadows. Quite thought provoking.

In Berlin, the three axis symbolize three paths of Jewish life in Germany – continuity in German history, emigration from Germany, and the Holocaust.

One of the axis contains a garden with 49 huge slanting cement blocks, with olive trees grown on top of them, while another had a small tiny room that is completely pitched dark, with just a small slit in the corner of the ceiling to allow miniscule of light in.

A noteworthy permanent installation at the musuem is the one titled Shalekat (Fallen Leaves) by Israeli artist Menashe, dedicated to the innocent victims of war and violence. 10,000 faces punched out of steel and distributed on the ground of the Memory Void, the only "voided" space of the Libeskind Building that can be entered.

The musuem provides information about the Jewish religion and dietary habits of a Jew, as well as art and music and famous Jews of time. It also provided historical details that led to Jews killed during the Holocaust.

I spent about 2 hrs at this Musuem and it was an information overload. Some could easily spent more time here, as there were sections when I just skimmed through.