Detail from Maya Zack's computer-generated visualization Living Room 1 (2009); Jewish Museum Berlin.
Our Collection
“Telling stories with objects” is a guiding principle of all our collections. This can take shape through extraordinary individual items or through groups of various objects, images, artworks, and documents. This is how we shed light on the lives of German Jews and Jews in Germany.
Our Collection
- Landing 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
Objects in Our Collection
Our collections currently encompass about 9,500 works of art, 1,000 objects of applied art, 1,500 objects of religious use, 4,500 objects of material culture, 24,000 photographs, more than 1,700 individual collections in the Archive, and approximately 11,000 volumes in the Library’s historical holdings.
The objects in our collection illustrate Jewish culture and history, provide material for research, and last but certainly not least, to commemorate the people whose stories they tell.
Family Collections
At the heart of our collection are bequests from families. These include all manner of images, objects, and documents. Together, they paint a lively portrait of private, professional, and religious life. The family collections were preserved through persecution and emigration and donated to the museum by heirs from all around the world.
Historical Emphases
Most of the objects in our collections date from the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. They document middle-class life and the onset of the modern age as well experiences of persecution and emigration. Berlin is a focus, but as a Jewish Museum for all of Germany, we also seek objects from other regions and other eras and objects relating to other themes.
As we expand the collection over the coming years, we are especially interested in the time period from 1945 to the present. We would be delighted if you helped us add interesting objects to the collection. Make us an offer or donate to our support organization, Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin.
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.
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.
