Anecdotes and Exciting Finds while Working with our Collection

Employees of our archive and our collections provide insight into their work and share stories and insights

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  From Cowpox to Covid-19

  The Archive staff members write about nearly 200 years of vaccine certificates in our archive

  Online Feature
  2021/22

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  “No, I Want Dr. O.”

  Leonie Meyer’s diaries from the years before her marriage (1910–12), presented by Jörg Waßmer

  Online Feature
  2021

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  Anna meets Leonie

  Drawings by Anna Justicz, inspired by Leonie Oliven’s diaries from 1901–1928

  Art Project
  2020

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  Documenting Brutality

  Historical sources on the antisemitic violence in Germany between 1930 and 1938 in the holdings of the Jewish Museum Berlin

  Online Project
  2020

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  Berlin in Times of Cholera

  Doreen Tesche and Jörg Waßmer discover some parallels to the current corona pandemic in Louis Röhmann’s diary entries about cholera in Berlin in 1837.

  Report
  2020

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  “Since that day, Iʼve felt like a newborn”

  A striking document about the 1945 Day of Liberation

  Online Feature
  2020

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  That can’t be! Can it?

  Jörg Waßmer about coincidences in the archive

  Online Feature
  2020

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  Kurt: Hunting for Clues

  Initially, all we have is a first name, but Jörg Waßmer’s intensive research brings some details to light.

  Online Feature
  2018

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  All for Love

  Jörg Waßmer searches for sexual diversity in the collection of the Jewish Museum Berlin

  Essay
  2018

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  Born in 1918, two minutes from his parents’ perfumery on Kurfürstendamm

  Fritz Scherk and the history of a family business in Berlin

  Essay
  2018

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  A Joyful Occasion for the Lustig Family

  Paula and Bernhard Lustig’s Wedding Album, presented by Susanne Schuur

  Online Feature
  2017

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  Return of the Café Nagler

  On the trail of a coffee shop

  Essay
  2017

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  “And next Sunday, no one will be thinking of the election anymore”

  By chance, archivist Jörg Waßmer found a report on the 1930 German Federal Election

  Essay
  2017

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  12 of 12,000

  Fallen German-Jewish Soldiers in the First World War

  Online Project
  2016

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  The Blow of a Hammer in the Rap of the Gavel

  The Last Signs of a Life in Germany Sold at Auction 75 Years Ago

  Essay
  2016

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  A Small Window onto History

  Aubrey Pomerance, Head of Archives, on a newly acquired Passover Haggadah and its previous owners in Kreuzberg

  Essay
  2014/16

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  Shot by German Police in 1946

  Aubrey Pomerance, Head of Archives, on the tragic fate of Shmuel Dancyger Z. L.

  Essay
  2016

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  “The best solution would be that the baby is a girl”

  Jörg Waßmer prepared the inventory of Fritz Wachsner’s estate and got some insights into an internal Jewish debate about circumcision.

  Essay
  2015

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  Salvaged from the Trash

  Anna Rosemann on the photo albums of the artist Olga Irén Fröhlich

  Essay
  2015

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  Conservation of Letters and Seals

  Stephan Lohrengel reports about his work as paper conservator in the Jewish Museum Berlin.

  Report
  2015

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  The World in Miniature

  Kirsten Meyer on conserving and storing a stamp album

  Report
  2014

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  From idyllic landscape views to the trenches

  Seeing the First World War through an army doctor’s photographs

  Essay
  2014

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  Farewell Letter, Ink on Paper

  Exhibition curator Maren Krüger and paper conservator Stephan Lohrengel about a touching historical document and why we could only exhibit it so shortly

  Essay
  2013

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  Ludwig Guttmann, Father of the Special Olympics

  Archivist Manfred Wichmann on the Life and Work of Ludwig Guttmann

  Essay
  2012