The Berlin Storyteller
Private Tours in Berlin
Jewish Berlin
Length: 2h–4h
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Berlin had Germany's biggest Jewish community, its members being essential parts of society with leading positions in art, industry and science.
We start at the Gendarmenmarkt to talk about medieval progroms and new beginnings during Prussia's policy of religious tolerance in the late 17th and 18th century. At Jägerstrasse we get to know Moses Mendelssohn and follow his life from an outsider to a respected philosopher and initiator of the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment. Get to know about Berlin's most famous professor, Albert Einstein, at the Humbold university and learn what we owe to James Simon at the Museum Island and the Hausvogteiplatz.
Together we'll explore the area around the New Synagogue and follow the story line of Stella Goldschlag, a young Jewish woman that went through the years of persecution until she found herself in the hands of the Gestapo in Große Hamburge Strasse, faced with a horrible choice. A story of hidden survival at Otto Weidt's workshop for the blind, destroyed heritage at the old cemetary and an unexpected renaissance of Jewish life in modern times. The tour can be extended to include the the memorial site Track 17 in Berlin – Grunewald and the Bavarian quarter in Schöneberg.