History

Jews have experienced persecution throughout their history. The time spans, politics and specific incidents number too many to cite. Persecutions reached their most distructive under Nazi Germany policies, leading to The Holocaust.

Depicted Dislike of Jews By Christians

By 1942, the Nazi leadership implemented the Final Solution, a way to exterminate Jews entirely. This genocide transported Jews to death camps where they awaited death by gassing or gunfire. Those not killed right away experienced internment, where many died from malnutrition, starvation and disease.

Orders, Orders, Orders

Sheets Of Orders and Decrees Against German Jews, By Year

To cleanse the German military, this decree makes it so solidiers must prove their wives’ non-Jewish ancestry.

The Nuremberg trials held individuals accountable, instead of the state, for crimes. Soldiers could not form a defense by stating that they had to follow orders.

Nazi Law Enforcement

The buildings that housed the Gestapo, Schutzstaffel Reich Security, Sicherheitspolizei, Sicherheitsdienst and Einsatzgruppen, once stood on a plot of land known as the Topography of Terror. These Nazi police and security forces organized and carried out crimes against humanity.

Topography of Terror

People walk along what once was the basement of one of the security buildings. A section of the Berlin Wall runs along the top (notice the dark round coping). This section and the grounds closeby now stand as an indoor-outdoor museum.

Responsibility of Germans

When the government repeatedly applies orders to a specific group of people, what responsibility and culpability does the general population have? This question haunts, divides and puzzles Germans to this day.

This board asks, “Did the German population under National Socialism have a share of the responsibility for the Holocaust? Why?” Museum visitors write their thoughts and place notes on the side of yes or no, or right on the dividing line.

Born in England, Carey Harrison tattooed the first page of Minima Moralia - Reflections From Damaged Life on his back. Even though Berlin played a role in his family’s persecution, Carey felt a strong connection to his mother’s native city. The book, written by a Germany author during exile, contains essays reflecting on fascism and other -isms.

Monuments

Holocaust monuments exist in multiple places in Berlin. Many of them contain uneven floors with large, non-uniform-height columns. Visitors experience disorientation, to better understand the jarring effect of Jewish treatment under Nazi rule, with deportations, forced labor and death camps.