Themuseum’s doctrine is that of preserving the German Jewish culture and displaythe way their lifestyle changed during and after the Holocaust. Cities havecapitalized on their cultural and historical resources in order to lure morecapital investment into their urban centres, mostly through branding their citythrough its history and promoting it as a landmark. (Crysler, Cairns and Heynen, 2013, p.252) The Jewish Museum makes use of its history byre-establishing German Jews within society once more, it was a sort ofdeclaration that what had happened will not happen again and a way throughwhich a healing process can begin. The Jewish Museum was not an attempt ofre-creating what the old museum stood for – it’s not the act of replicating itsfunction.
Globalization has been the main source of creating new cities foreconomic benefit and it resorts to increasing commodification of heritage. Thestrong emphasis of integration of the Berlin and Jewish museum despite theturmoiled relationship the Germans and the Jews have, both of them work togetherin order to sustain German history. Jewish culture cannot be separable from historyof Modernity. Libeskind did not want to reduce the museum or architecture to adetached memorial because both of them are a part of the same history and hencewhy the Jewish Museum and the Berlin Museum have to work together to elevatethis unhealable wound.David Scottstates that: “any imagination of the past is ineluctably linked to the present,and that how we tell histories is as important as what we tell.” (Crysler, Cairns and Heynen, 2013, p.321) The Holocaust was not just one more event intime; it was a reorientation of space – an event more drastic than what hadoccurred in the thousands of years of Berlin’s previous history. The museum givespotential to showcasing the past in light of the future.
The Jewish Berlinersare inextricably connected with the identity of the city – an integral part ofthe Cultural Significance of the place.The term”memory” was often forgotten when discussing issues relating to ourheritage. Our memory is able to recallcertain aspects of our lives and help us understand better where we come from.Up until 1968, memory was still a vague concept, but evolved into a veryimportant matter relating to culture, society, politics, humanities andhistory. The Holocaust of WWII has been known to be the generator of the”memory machine” – a reflection on nostalgia.
(Crysler, Cairns and Heynen, 2013, p.325) Memory has become such an importantfactor, because by time it will disappear – in due time witnesses will startdisappearing and their memories will disappear with them as well. EmileDurkheim speaks about collective memory as something which enables us societiesto achieve this sort of connection with the past and carry on living a lifethrough continuity. Collective memory evolves with time, and throughout thesememory machines, ranging from digital archives, social practices etc.
we areable to solidify our memories. (Crysler,Cairns and Heynen, 2013, p.252)