Jewish Berlin

A few days will not be enough to cover the entire history of the Jewish people in Berlin. Memorable places are scattered throughout the city, it is quite difficult to collect them in a single route. But on my tour, I will introduce you to the area where so rich and rich history of Berlin Jews was born. The first mention of Jews in Berlin in 1295, almost immediately after the founding of the city, followed by expulsions, persecutions, permission to settle again, the flourishing of the Jewish community, the emergence of world-wide names, the worst tragedy during the Holocaust and now, the revival of Jewish life in Berlin. This tour will appeal to anyone interested in the history of the Jewish people.

We will begin acquaintance with you in the central area of Mitte, near the Khaki courtyards. You will visit a very unusual, cozy complex of closed courtyards with the Anne Frank Museum and the memorial factory of Otto Weidt, the man who, under pain of death, helped some Berlin Jews survive the Holocaust. In the same courtyard, Schwarzenberg, we will visit with you the Museum of “Silent Heroes”, dedicated to the brave Germans who helped the Jews, risking their own lives and the lives of their families. We will walk through the ceremonial, residential, working courtyards, look at the Rose Courtyard.

Next, we will walk to Rosenstrasse, where in 1412 the first synagogue in Berlin was built, in our time only the foundation remains of it. This place is famous for the fact that in 1943 the first open protégé of the Germans against the actions of the National Socialists took place here. German women defended their husbands, sons, brothers. Unheard of for those times act, which is now dedicated to a memorable memorial and, of course, a memorable story about those events.

We will visit the first Jewish cemetery, where the great thinker Moses Mendelssohn, the founder of the Haskala movement and the grandfather of the equally great Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdi, whose “Wedding March” is still an integral part of the life of most people, was buried. There we will visit the gathering place of Jews for deportation to concentration camps in a former nursing home. There is now a monument to the dead.

We will get acquainted with a very unusual monument “The Absent House”, the work of modern French artist Christian Boltanski, see “Stumbling Stones” and the monument “Abandoned Space”, a Jewish school for boys, Schöinenfiertel – Sarajevo quarter and much more.

We can finish our tour in front of the majestic building of the New Synagogue, the opening of which in 1866 was attended by the well-known Otto von Bismarck. There is a museum in the synagogue and we can visit it. After our tour, I will recommend you a great kosher restaurant, where you can taste delicious hummus.

There is an opportunity to drive to the Holocaust memorial, where I will tell you in detail about the greatest tragedy of the Jewish people and we can visit the information center below it. By car, you can visit the Villa-Museum, where the Wannsee Conference was held, which adopted the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”; Route 17, from which trains left for concentration camps; Hausvogteiplatz Square, which until 1933 was the textile center of the fashion kings, now there is a memorial; the Museum “Topography of Terror”, built on the site of the Gestapo; a modern Jewish cultural center on Fasanenstrasse.

The exact route can be adjusted depending on your wishes, so write, call and I will make an individual route for you.

Albert Einstein once said, “If my theory of relativity is confirmed, the Germans will say I am German, but if my theory of relativity is refuted, the Germans will declare me Jewish.” When and why he said so, we will talk on our tour.