Project day: Archive Workshop

How does an object make it into the Museum?

Numerous collections of individuals and families are kept in the Jewish Museum Berlin archive. Certificates, letters, manuscripts, photographs, and everyday objects from work and home tell of the lives and fates of the German Jews.

Guided by museum educators, the young people will explore themes such as emigration or daily life under the Nazis using archival material. Writing explanatory texts on the findings and making suggestions as to how they should be exhibited will be part of the presentations, thus offering insight into museum work as a profession.

Working with original materials makes this dip into the history and culture of German Jews a deeply personal one that goes far beyond the general historical context. A theme-oriented tour can be added to the workshop on request.

From May to June 2013, contemporary witnesses will visit from England and elsewhere. We look forward to welcoming Rudi Leavor (born in 1926 as Rudolf Librowicz), who attended school in Berlin until 1937. His parents were arrested by the Gestapo in 1936 and following their release, they tried to leave the country as soon as they could. The family succeeded in emigrating to England in 1937 with a family-owned Torah scroll in their luggage. Rudi Leavor now lives in Bradford where he is cantor at a Reform synagogue. He donated the Torah scroll – saved through its transport to England – to the Jewish Museum Berlin where it can now be seen in the current temporary exhibition "The Whole Truth."
 
A further object for which the Jewish Museum Berlin has Rudi Leavor to thank can be viewed here.