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The Family Album

Panel Discussion with Donor Peter Schaul and Staff of the Museum Archive (video recording available, in German)

People touch a large touchscreen wall that displays documents and objects

The interactive Family Album presents ten collections from the museum holdings; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Yves Sucksdorff

In the JMB's new core exhibition, which opened in August 2020, the media installation Family Album presents the core of the collection: the historical legacies of German Jews, collected over the past twenty years from all over the world. The JMB has received more than 1600 family bequests from donors—the descendants of Jewish families who originally lived in Germany and emigrated or were deported during the time of National Socialism.

recording available

Where

online

Recording of the livestreamed panel discussion The Family Album with Peter Schaul and staff of the museum archive, in German; Jewish Museum Berlin 2020

A sample of these personal historical documents is now digitally accessible in the new core exhibition: along a five-meter-wide interactive wall, visitors can look at more than 460 documents and photos, everyday objects and works of art from the estates of ten families, tracing the life paths of several generations.

Within the framework of the Berlin Science Week, the Jewish Museum Berlin held a livestreamed panel discussion. Museum archive staff spoke about the challenges and opportunities that come with digital access, taking the Family Album as an example. Peter Schaul spoke from the perspective of a donor, recounting the life of his mother, Dora Schaul, whose estate he donated to the Jewish Museum Berlin in 2017. It is now part of the interactive installation.

In cooperation with Berlin Science Week

Where, when, what?

Event Series: Eyewitness Talks (15)

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