Times of upheaval

Photographs of the New Synagogue Berlin by Günter Krawutschke

Cover Zeiten des Umbruchs – Cover Zeiten des Umbruchs

On September 5, 1866, a new, large synagogue was inaugurated in Berlin's Spandauer Vorstadt, which was soon called the New Synagogue. This "once most beautiful and largest synagogue" in Germany had room for 3,200 men and women.

Damaged inside during the November pogroms of 1938, the intervention of the local police precinct commander Wilhelm Krützfeld and his colleagues from the Hackescher Markt police station prevented a large-scale firebombing. The bombings of 1943 destroyed large parts of the deconsecrated church. After World War II, the synagogue's main hall was blown up, but important parts of the New Synagogue remained as ruins and landmarks on Oranienburger Strasse, now in East Berlin. It was not until 1988 that reconstruction of the New Synagogue as the Centrum Judaicum could begin and the New Synagogue Berlin - Centrum Judaicum Foundation was established.

The reconstruction of the parts of the building that had been preserved as ruins was celebrated in public with a symbolic laying of the foundation stone on November 9, 1988. Even before this, with the beginning of securing work, the well-known Berlin photographer Günter Krawutschke was commissioned with the detailed and comprehensive photographic documentation of the entire building complex and its reconstruction. Thus, between 1988 and 1995, a documentation from the destroyed foundation walls to the partial reconstruction of the New Synagogue as a museum, research and meeting center was created. Günter Krawutschke transferred this part of his photographic work to the New Synagogue Berlin - Centrum Judaicum Foundation in 2018 for unrestricted use. It involves an estimated seven and a half thousand photographs. The unique stock of images, which is currently being conserved and digitized, will now be shown to a larger public for the first time in an exhibition.

A selection was made from the thousands of image motifs, which will be presented as an intervention in the permanent exhibition Tuet auf die Pforten.Translated with DeepL

Runtime: Thu, 14/09/2023 to Wed, 30/04/2025

Price info: Admission includes permanent exhibition, temporary exhibition, dome (in summer)

Price: €7.00

Reduced price: €4.50

Reduced price info: Admission includes permanent exhibition, temporary exhibition, dome (in summer)

Takes place here:

• Neue Synagoge - Centrum Judaicum