Our Archive
Documentation of Jewish Life
Our Archive is located in the W. Michael Blumenthal Academy, opposite the museum. It safeguards numerous bequests, family collections, and individual documents that permit researchers to draw conclusions about the lives and fates of Jewish families and individuals. We document Jewish history in all its diversity, covering religious, cultural, political, and business life as well as private festivities and personal experiences.
Where
W. M. Blumenthal Academy, Archives
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
Postal address: Lindenstraße 9-14, 10969 Berlin
Historical and Geographical Scope
Our holdings include documents from 1623 to the present with an emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The majority of the archival materials come from Berlin, where approximately a third of German Jews lived until the 1930s. However, since our museum opened, we have been able to acquire extensive material documenting Jewish life in other towns and regions in Germany and, in some cases, beyond.
Diverse Documents from Private Donations
Our Archive’s collection is composed almost entirely of private donations. The approximately 1,700 sets of documents range in length from several pages to 40 archival boxes. They include writs of protection and citizenship certificates, wedding and other civil status certificates, documents of military service, of training and professional life, business, scientific, and private correspondence, diaries, and memoirs. Photographs, decorated certificates, souvenirs, and everyday objects from our other collections complement the written materials.
Testament of Veitel Heine Ephraim (1703–1775), Berlin 1774; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe
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Testament of Veitel Heine Ephraim (1703–1775), Berlin 1774; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe
Aubrey Pomerance, head of our archives and curator of the new core exhibition, talks about a family album as a testimony to a close friendship and two diverging life paths; Jewish Museum Berlin 2020. Read more about this family album.
Historical Emphases
We have particularly extensive holdings on middle-class life in the German Empire, on participation in the First World War, and on life and persecution during the Nazi era, encompassing internment, deportation, and murder, but also emigration and reestablishment in exile. A growing number of documents from the postwar period reflects communities' reconstruction and the fresh start, life in Displaced Persons camps, individuals' return from exile, and Jewish life in both parts of Germany and in the reunified country after 1989.
Branches of Other Archives on Our Premises
Our archive also houses a branch of the New York–based Leo Baeck Institute, with more than 4,500 microfilm reels of the institute's holdings available in our Reading room. It is also home to a branch of the Wiener Library with roughly 500 microfilm reels documenting Nazi rule and Nazi crimes.
A Look into our Holdings
All holdings can be viewed by researchers, students, and other interested parties in the Museum's Reading Room on request. (The Reading Room's opening hours and other information on our website).
Please register via the following web form and let us know your preferred date and order preferences:
How can I donate objects, photographs, and documents to the museum?
Interested in Contributing to Our Collections?
Do you own materials related to Jewish culture and history in Germany that could be of interest to us? We would be delighted to hear from you!
How can I conduct research using the museum’s archive, collections, and library?
Our Reading Room is open to the public. You can also research using our library’s holdings and some of our collection’s holdings online. To view additional holdings, please contact the responsible curators.
Can the museum help me research my family history?
You may use our in-house holdings for research purposes. We have also compiled a directory of links to research opportunities for personal and family research and genealogy.
I would like to depict or borrow an object from your collections. Who should I contact?
Your contacts for photo permissions are Valeska Wolfgram and Birgit Maurer-Porat (T +49 (0)30 259 93 433, email: fotodoku@jmberlin.de). Please consider that it may take between four to six weeks Please note that the processing time for requests can take between 4 and 6 weeks. We will be happy to provide you with further information on fees and reproduction conditions on request.
Contact
Aubrey Pomerance
Head of Archives/Leo Baeck Institute
T +49 (0)30 259 93 556
a.pomerance@jmberlin.de
- Address
Jewish Museum Berlin
Lindenstraße 9–14
10969 Berlin
Our Collection
- Landing Page
- Current page: Archive: documenting Jewish life
- Audiovisual Media: historic sound recordings, family films and video art
- Library: books about Jewish art, culture, and history
- Fine Arts: Jewish history from the perspective of visual culture
- Photography: art photography, historical press images and family photos
- Jewish Object: Material Culture: objects and textiles for nonreligious purposes
- Jewish Object: Applied Arts: objects produced by German-Jewish craftspeople and companies
- Jewish Object: Judaica: ritual and everyday items of religious purpose
- Digital Content
- Online Collections: explore selected objects (in German)
- Online Showcase: digital presentation of our past collections, video projects, and more
- Object in Showcase: stories from our collection
- See also
- The History of Our Collections: learn about the initial inspiration and transition to today's museum
- Our Collection Management: responsibilities and contact information
- Sources of Collection Holdings: in publications of the Berlin museum (1978 to 1995)
- Provenance Research: unveiling the origins of our objects
- Conservation: how to presperve our objects for future generations
Event Series: Eyewitness Talks (17)
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Eyewitness Talks
In this event series eyewitnesses tell of their fates during the nazi era (video recordings available, in German, some of them with English subtitles)
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From Munich to La Paz
From Munich to La Paz Eyewitness talk with Manfred Eisner
Eyewitness Talk
Mon 23 Jun 2025, 7 pm -
In Two Worlds
Eyewitness talk with Jack Weil, witness of the second generation, in German
Video Recording
Mon 10 Mar 2025, 7 pm -
Kurt Salomon Maier: Life and Trajectory of a Jewish Family from Baden
Born in southern Baden in 1930, he was deported to France at age ten. In 1941, an affidavit from relatives enabled his family to emigrate to the United States.
Video Recording
28 Oct 2024 -
Hidden in Enschede. Conversation with Contemporary Witness Herbert Zwartz
Part of the program accompanying the exhibition “My Verses Are Like Dynamite” Curt Bloch’s Underwater Cabaret, in German
Video Recording
16 Apr 2024 -
Ruth Weiss – Paths Through Tough Grass
Eyewitness Talk – Experiences and Fates of Jews during the Nazi Era, in German, with English and German subtitles
Video Recording
20 Sep 2022 -
Harry Raymon: Different from the Start
Harry Raymon was born in 1926 in Kirchberg, a town in the Hunsrück upland of southwestern Germany, to a family of Jewish businesspeople. In 1936, his family fled the Nazis and emigrated to the United States, in German
Video Recording
28 Feb 2022 -
In Conversation with Eva Schloss
On 27 January 1945, 15-year-old Eva Geiringer and her mother Elfriede were among the around 7,000 people who witnessed the liberation of the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps by the Soviet Army, in German, with English subtitles
Video Recording
27 Jan 2021 -
The Family Album
Peter Schaul recounts the life of his mother, Dora Schaul, whose estate is part of the interactive installation The Family Album, in German
Video Recording
9 Nov 2020 -
Zvi Aviram: Brushes with Death
Zvi Aviram was born in January 1927 in Berlin as Heinz Abrahamsohn. From age 14, he had to perform forced labor in the arms industry. During the so-called factory operation on 27 February 1943, his parents were arrested and deported and he himself went into illegality, in German
Video Recording
16 Sep 2019 -
Sally Perel: Hitlerjunge Salomon
Sally Perel was born in Peine in April 1925. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union he pretended to be a Volksdeutscher and called himself Josef Perjell, in German
Video Recording
12 Jun 2019 -
Peter Neuhof: A Youth in the Shadow of the Persecution
Peter Neuhof speaks about his memories and experiences in an interview with Aubrey Pomerance, head of the archive (in German). His parents were active members of the German Communist Party (KPD) and were arrested in 1943. Peter was able to remain in the parental home, in German
Video Recording
3 Dec 2018 -
Hanni Levy: Surviving in Berlin
Born in 1924, survived the Nazi era in hiding in Berlin with the help of friends, in German
Video Recording
25 Jun 2018 -
Anita Lasker Wallfisch
Born in Breslau in 1925, Anita Lasker Wallfisch studied cello in Berlin from 1938. In 1942, Anita’s parents were deported to Izbica and murdered, and in 1943 Anita and her sister Renate were deported to Ausschwitz, in German
Video Recording
28 May 2018 -
Margot Friedländer: Try to Make Your Life
Margot Friedländer was born in 1921 in Berlin and has had close ties with the museum for many years. She reads from her memoir, which takes its title from her mother’s last message to her: Try to Make Your Life. Followed by a brief discussion with Aubrey Pomerance, Head of the Archive, in German
Video Recording
9 Apr 2018 -
Walter Frankenstein: Not with Us
Born in 1924 in West Prussia, Walter Frankenstein lived in Berlin from 1936. When deportation threatened, he went into hiding with his wife and their five-week-old son. The family managed to survive with the help of friends, in German
Video Recording
31 Jan 2018 -
Kurt Roberg: A Visa Or Your Life
Born 1924 in Celle, emigration at the end of 1938 via the Netherlands, return to Berlin in March 1941 and re-emigration in May 1941 via Lisbon to the USA, in German
Video Recording
4 Dec 2017 -
Henry Wuga: A Nuremberger from Glasgow
Henry Wuga was born to a Jewish mother and a Catholic father in Nuremberg in 1924. In 1938, his parents were able to send him to Scotland with a children’s transport, in German
Video Recording
23 Oct 2017
Online Features: The Background and Ramifications of 9 November 1938 (5)
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The Background and Ramifications of 9 November 1938
The employees of our Archive have combed through our archival holdings and assembled materials on various topics related to the violent riots against Jews that took place on 9 and 10 November 1938
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“We were being driven like hunted animals!”
Mendel Max Karp’s lengthy account about his deportation from the German capital on October 28, 1938, during the Polenaktion
Online Feature
2018 -
“... or was it the end of the world?”
In a letter, David Fiks records an extensive account of his experiences in Berlin on 9 November 1938 and the days that followed.
Online Feature
2018 -
The Exclusion of Jewish Children from Public Schools 1938
What an apparently innocuous postcard reveals
Online Feature
2018 -
“Travel Toward a Happy Future!”
In reaction to the November Pogroms, the Kindertransport program of 1938–39 rescued ten thousand children from the Nazis’ violent regime.
Online Feature
2018 -
“Decisive Defense and Hard Reparations”
The financial punishment of the Jewish populace after Kristallnacht
Online Feature
2018
