Jewish Museum Berlin

The Jewish Museum Berlin is two experiences that work together: a building that makes you feel history before you read a word of it, and one of the best museums anywhere on Jewish life in Germany. The museum is entered through the Old Building, a Baroque former courthouse on Lindenstrasse in Kreuzberg, and from there you descend underground into the Libeskind Building, the jagged, zinc-clad extension designed by the architect Daniel Libeskind and opened in 2001. Its plan is a broken zigzag, its windows are slashes across the facade, and inside it is cut through by empty concrete spaces, the Voids, that stand for what was lost. Underground, three sloping axes cross each other: the Axis of Exile leads out to the Garden of Exile, a tilted grid of tall concrete columns topped with trees that leaves visitors deliberately off balance; the Axis of the Holocaust ends in the Holocaust Tower, a cold, dark, unheated void lit only by a slit of daylight far above; and the Axis of Continuity climbs a long staircase to the exhibition floors. In one of the Voids, the installation Shalekhet (Fallen Leaves) by Menashe Kadishman covers the floor with thousands of iron faces that clang as you walk over them, and it is one of the most affecting moments in any Berlin museum. The core exhibition, Jewish Life in Germany: Past and Present, runs from the medieval communities of the Rhineland through the Enlightenment, emancipation, the flourishing of Jewish Berlin, persecution and the Shoah, and on to Jewish life in Germany after 1945 and today, using objects, personal stories, art, media and music. Admission to the core exhibition and the Libeskind Building is free for everyone; only certain temporary exhibitions in the Old Building are charged, and under-18s are free there too.

How to plan your visit: the museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm, with last admission at 5pm, and is closed on Mondays and on certain Jewish holidays and special dates, so check the calendar for your trip; in 2026 it closes on 14 November and on Christmas Eve, and the Shalekhet installation and the Gallery of the Missing are closed from 23 November to 4 December 2026. Even though the core exhibition is free, you can book a time slot online, which is sensible at weekends; walk-in tickets are available at the desk. Expect airport-style security at the entrance. Allow at least three hours: an hour for the architecture and the axes, and two or more for the core exhibition, which is large.

Getting the most from it: do the underground axes, the Garden of Exile and the Holocaust Tower first, because the building sets the emotional tone for everything else, and then climb to the core exhibition. The museum's free app works as a guide through the building. Take a break at the cafe, which serves vegetarian and vegan Israeli food, or in the large museum garden behind the building, which you can enter without a ticket. Families should know about ANOHA, the museum's children's world across the road in the W. Michael Blumenthal Academy, built around a giant wooden Noah's Ark with animals made from recycled materials; it is free, but has its own hours and an online booking fee.

Who it suits and what to pair it with: history buffs, architecture lovers and anyone who wants to understand Germany beyond the Nazi period, since the museum is as much about centuries of Jewish life and culture as about its destruction. It is suitable for older children and teenagers, with ANOHA for younger ones. The museum is in Kreuzberg, a short walk from Checkpoint Charlie and the Topography of Terror, which together make a powerful history day; finish with the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe near the Brandenburg Gate.