Museums and Collections Master Thesis

Leiden University Master Arts & Culture Specialization: Museums and Collections Master Thesis Memory is the Foundation of the Future: Holocaust Museums Memory Construction through Architecture and Narrative, Yad Vashem and the Jewish Museum in Berlin. By Lucrezia Levi Morenos Student Number: 2231719 2018-2019 Supervised by Dr. Mirjam Hoijtink Word Count: 17725 Table of Contents Acknowledgments III Introduction 1 Chapter I Yad Vashem 8 I.1 Geographic Significance and Architecture 9 I.2 The Holocaust History Museum’s Narrative 13 Chapter II The Jewish Museum in Berlin 21 II.1 Geographic Significance and Architecture 22 II.2 Narrative of the Jewish Museum in Berlin 27 II.3 Old Permanent Collection Design and ‘Welcome to Jerusalem’ 33 Chapter III Comparing Yad Vashem and the Jewish Museum in Berlin and Exploring Current Events Surrounding the Two Institutions III.1 Yad Vashem and the Jewish Museum in Berlin 38 III.2 Current Debates 41 Conclusion 47 List of Illustrations 50 Bibliography 58 II Acknowledgements Writing this thesis has been a gratifying experience and there are some people I would like to thank for helping me shape this project. First, I would like to thank my supervisor, Mirjam Hoijtink for always being available to help me and giving me suggestions on how to improve my work. In particular, I would like to thank her for introducing me to the field of memory studies; thanks to her advice I developed a work much more critical and I discovered a new field of studies that fascinates me. The topic of Holocaust museums is very complex and this thesis gave me the opportunity to explore questions that have been in my mind for a long time. The first time I visited Yad Vashem was in the summer of 2017, and the Museum, as well as the land of Israel itself, left a big impact on me. It was an incredible experience that left me with many questions; with this thesis, I managed to answer some, and raise other new ones. I am also glad that with this work I was able to research the history of the Jewish Museum in Berlin as well as the construction of the national memory of Germany after WWII. Approaching the two museums after studying and researching national and collective memories allowed me to explore their narratives more in depth. Vorrei ringraziare i miei genitori, Elisabetta e Luca, e anche i miei nonni, Gipi, Gian Maria e Mario per essermi stati vicini quest’anno un po’ difficile. I would also like to thank my English friend and author Connor, who helped me proofread my thesis for the second time. My friends Hannah and Juliette: this year in Leiden would not have been the same without you two, and also Kilian who always supports me. III Introduction Over the last decades, Holocaust and Jewish Museums have been opened all around the world. Jewish Museums preserve the memory of the past, as well as the future of Jewish communities.1 Some museums are focused directly on the Shoah, others show aspects of Jewish life before and after the Second World War.2 While in the past Holocaust museums were focused on the sensitization of the Shoah, nowadays some of these museums relate to other ethnic minorities too, like the Jewish Museum in Berlin. One of the purposes of the German institution is to respect and recognize other minorities, such as Muslims as religious minorities in Germany, to fight prejudices.3 As of June 2019, its permanent collection is being renovated: the reopening is scheduled for 2020. In the meantime, the floors dedicated to the Holocaust as well as some temporary exhibitions are open to the public. The Jewish Museum in Berlin is the leading Jewish institution in Germany, the perpetrators’ country. One cannot speak of Holocaust museums without mentioning the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the biggest research center in the world to remember the Shoah. It is a very interesting example because of its geographic location and the way it relates to Jewish-Israeli memory. The study is dedicated to show how the Shoah is perceived by the victims as well as by the perpetrators nowadays in the two main Holocaust museums in Israel and Germany. ‘It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and everywhere… thus we must sharpen our senses, beware of the charmers, those 1 The difference between Jewish and Holocaust museums: while both types of museums deal with the Holocaust, Jewish museums mainly focus on Jewish life and rituals. For example, the Jewish Museum in Venice concentrates on their collection of textiles and goldsmith objects made between the 16th and 19th centuries, as well as on the life of Venetian Jews. Holocaust museums instead center their narrative around the event of the Holocaust, and even when giving background information on Jewish history or religious life, it is always in relation to the Shoah. This thesis will discuss the Jewish Museum in Berlin as a Holocaust museum since it has been long associated mostly with the Shoah. 2 The terms ‘Shoah’ and ‘Holocaust’ are both used to talk about ‘the genocide perpetrated by German Nazis during World War II’, however the words have originally different meanings. ‘Holocaust’ comes from Greek and it originally referred to an ‘offering burnt as a whole’ and it was a Greek religious animal sacrifice; the word can also mean more generally a massacre by fire. The term was previously used to describe other Jewish massacres in history such as the anti-Jewish violence during the reign of Richard I of England, it was also used to describe the Armenian genocide. ‘Shoah’ is a Hebrew biblical term that means ‘calamity’ and is more closely related to the genocide of Jewish victims. ‘Holocaust’ is a more common term in Anglo-Saxon countries, while ‘Shoah’ is generally used in Europe. ‘What is the difference between Holocaust and Shoah,’ About the Holocaust, Accessed June 5, 2019, https://aboutholocaust.org/facts/what-is-the-difference-between-holocaust- and-shoah/. 3 ‘Academy Programs,’ Jewish Museum Berlin, Accessed April 23, 2019, https://www.jmberlin.de/en/academy. 1 who say nice words not driven by good reasons.’4 This sentence written by Jewish-Italian author Primo Levi offers an explanation on why Holocaust Museums are always relevant and how they can contribute to prevention by engaging with history and personal experiences of survivors like Levi.5 Whereas in Europe, Holocaust related sites like the former concentration camps became increasingly professional museums, in the United States and Israel, Holocaust museums and monuments arose for reasons more related to a Jewish need to connect to this dramatic phase of its history.6 In fact, when the Nazi regime came to power, many Jewish people emigrated to the US and Israel to seek safety, their lives were completely disrupted as many lost family and friends in the Holocaust, therefore Holocaust and Jewish museums helped them cope and deal with what happened in Europe. Developing this thesis in present times is especially meaningful; right-wing movements are rising in Europe and the survivors of World War II are almost all gone, therefore we will rely more and more on Holocaust museums to understand the Shoah. In the last decades, many discussions about Holocaust institutions have been raised. This thesis examines material written on Holocaust museums, historiography and memory studies discourses. In order to discuss both Yad Vashem and the Jewish Museum in Berlin (JMB), Jewish authorship provides a first approach to these museums’ architecture and narrative. Rotem,7 in her book Constructing Memory discussed the power of architecture for Holocaust narrative. She wrote a chapter on Yad Vashem, and one on the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Neuman8 wrote about Yad Vashem, focusing on the new museum building opened in 2005, in Shoah Presence. ‘Museum architecture as spatial storytelling of historical time’ by Lu examined how architecture can become a form of storytelling of the Holocaust.9 Lu argued that 4 Original text: ‘È avvenuto, quindi può accadere di nuovo: questo è il nocciolo di quanto abbiamo da dire. Può accadere, e dappertutto ... occorre quindi affinare i nostri sensi, diffidare degli incantatori, da quelli che dicono belle parole non sostenute da buone ragioni’ my translation from Italian. Primo Levi, I sommersi e i salvati, 165. 5 Primo Levi was a Holocaust survivor. He was captured in 1943 and escaped from Auschwitz in 1945. He died in 1987, unclear whether his death was an accident or suicide. 6 Edward van Voolen ‘Shaping Memory in Judaism’ in Jewish Identity in Contemporary Architecture, eds. Angeli Sachs and Edward van Vollen, 18. 7 Stephanie Shosh Rotem, Constructing Memory: Architectural Narratives of Holocaust Museums. Stephanie Rotem got her PhD at Tel Aviv University and is currently teaching there. 8 Eran Neuman, Shoah Presence: Architectural Representations of the Holocaust. Eran Neuman (1968) studied at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem and got a Ph.D. from the University of California in Los Angeles. He is now the director of the David Azrieli School of Architecture at Tel Aviv University. 9 Fangqing Lu, ‘Museum architecture as spatial storytelling of historical time: Manifesting a primary example of Jewish space in Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum’. 2 ‘the idea of spatial storytelling contributes toward a unique embodied experience for the general public to support the process of “self- learning,” as well as interpreting and mediating memory through tangible artefacts and architecture.’10 Silke Arnold-de Simine also highlighted the ‘importance

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