Fallen Leaves is a powerful symbolic art installation in the Jewish Museum Berlin. One of the largest such museums in Europe, Berlin’s Jewish Museum actually consists of two buildings. The visitor enters through the baroque Kollegienhaus, an old gilded building (originally built as a courthouse http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/berlins-kammergericht-appellate-court/ and later used by the Berlin Museum), and descends into the basement level of a stark, postmodern building. The 161,000 square foot new concrete structure, designed by Daniel Libeskind, has three corridors: the Axis of Exile with the personal effects of Jews who fled Germany during the 1930s on display, the Axis of the Holocaust with displays of letters and photographs of murdered Jews on exhibit and the Axis of Continuity, showing 2,000 years of German Jewish history.
Fallen Leaves installation
The most power installation for me was Fallen Leaves (Shalekhet), displayed in one of several empty “voided” spaces in the museum. The bare concrete Memory Void runs through the entire building. Its only light emanates from a small slit at the top of the space. Here the ground is covered with 10,000 flat iron disks that visitors are free to walk on. The disks are pressed into the shape of faces with crude cutouts for eyes, nose and mouth. The mouths are contorted and look like they might be screaming silently. The faces symbolize those lost during the Holocaust as well as the victims of war and violence in general. The display was designed by Israeli artist Menashe Kadisman.
Fallen Leaves – Symbolic Art Installation in the Jewish Museum Berlin, photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2016, www.walled-in-berlin.com
What is the meaning of voids?
Libeskind created “voids” to symbolize the history and humanity lost as a result of the Holocaust. The architect explains that the voids represent “what can never be exhibited.” Libeskind created five voids – angular openings – in the Jewish Museum Berlin. Three of the voids are inaccessible. The visitor can only look into them through slit-like windows. The two accessible voids are: The Void of Voidness is an unheated tower with the only light emanating from a narrow slit in the roof. The other accessible void is the Void of Memory with the Fallen Leaves installation.
Void of Voidness, Jewish Museum Berlin, photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2016, www.walled-in-berlin.com
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Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
