Path of Resistance: Berlin’s Hidden Holocaust Stories

Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin - Centrum Judaicum

The starting point for this tour is the Neue Synagogue, New Synagogue. Constructed in 1866, the Synagogue was the largest and most magnificent in Berlin, a literal representation of the thriving 160,000 Berlin Jewish community members. Saved from vandals during the infamous Kristallnacht pogrom. The Synagogue remained in use until 1940 until being confiscated by the Army and used to store military uniforms. In November 1943, the Synagogue was severely damaged in an allied bombing raid. The main hall was torn down in 1958, partly rebuilt in 1988 and officially reopened in 1995. Today the Synagogue houses the Centrum Judaicum foundation, an institution for preserving Jewish memory and tradition.

Founded in 1779, the Jewish boy's school was the first Jewish school in Germany without fees. Although a Jewish institution the school was open to all faiths and promoted liberal Jewishness and accepted female students in 1931. In the Fall of 1941, the deportation of Jews to the newly conquered territories to the East resulted in banning all Jewish schools. In 1942, the Reich Main Security office under the SS turned the building into a transit camp. The windows were barred, and Jews were crammed inside to await deportation.

Jewish Cemetery and Holocaust Memorial

Between 1672 and 1827, some 12,000 Jewish community members were buried here. On the orders of the Gestapo, the SS destroyed the cemetery in 1943, smashing thousands of gravestones, throwing away remains and playing football with skulls. In April 1945 burials once again took place. Almost 2500 German soldiers and Berlin civilians killed during the fighting or shot by the SS for hanging white flags from their windows are buried in mass graves.