Judisches Museum, Berlin

This museum is set in an amazing building designed by Daniel Libeskind. A metallic zig-zag structure, with slashes to let light in and to let you see out, it makes you feel at times claustrophobic and trapped, at times safe and secure from the outside world, and yet gives you glances of that world from time to time, always with interesting perspectives. You begin by descending below ground level to a basement with three intersecting walkways on upward slopes. One is the axis of the holocaust and ends with a room like a tower with a small windowlight high up. Then there are the axes of emigration and continuity. The former ends with a garden of angled concrete columns.

After this dramatic beginning, you climb steep stairs to the second floor where the main displays begin. This picture is taken looking down those stairs. The museum focuses on Jewish history and experience in Germany, from the Middle Ages to the present. A really impressive museum. Afterwards we cycled to the Soviet Monument in Treptower Park. A mighty piece of Soviet art, in recognition of the 22,000 Soviet soldiers who died in the battle for Berlin.