The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, sees Jewish museums as pioneers for the future of Jewish life. This, he says, is the true value of Jewish cultural institutions: “Not to preserve memory as an echo for future generations, but to make it alive,” Schuster said on Wednesday evening in Augsburg. For memory always also signifies the future. “Concretely, it means securing a lasting place for the Jewish people in Germany.”
Schuster spoke at the Great Synagogue in Augsburg during a ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of the Jewish Museum Augsburg Swabia.
Jewish museums broaden understanding of Jewish life, “far beyond the human atrocity of the Shoah,” said this year’s recipient of the Augsburg Peace Prize. They are cultural institutions that provide support and orientation and ensure visibility.
Memory is highly relevant today, Schuster added. “The voices that seek to push Jews out of German society – not only with words but with bloody deeds – have grown louder than we could ever have imagined over decades. We must all oppose this shrill cacophony, whether we are Jews or not.”
Everyone must stand up for the normalcy of Jewish life in Germany. “A normalcy that those who seek to question it through the antisemitic attacks we have been experiencing explosively since 7 October wish to undermine.”
Bavaria’s State Minister for European Affairs and International Relations, Eric Beißwenger (CSU), stated that Bavaria continues to stand firmly alongside Israel and Jews. They are an integral part of the Free State. “Jewish life must not exist in the shadows,” Beißwenger emphasised. Visibility is necessary, and the Jewish Museum Augsburg Swabia contributes to this.
According to its own information, the Jewish Museum Augsburg Swabia is the oldest independent Jewish museum in the Federal Republic. The institution traces its origins to Julius Spokojny (1923–1996), the former president of the Israelite Cultural Community of Swabia–Augsburg, who had pursued the idea of a Jewish museum since the 1960s. Both Jewish and non-Jewish supporters founded the “Jewish Cultural Museum Augsburg–Swabia” in 1984.
During this period, the museum reports, the synagogue damaged by the Nazis was also renovated. Public funding for the work required that the building be made accessible to the public. On 1 September 1985, not only was the synagogue reopened, but the Jewish Cultural Museum was also inaugurated.
Since 2018, the museum has borne its current name, Jewish Museum Augsburg Swabia. In addition to its location in Augsburg city centre, it has had a second site since 2014 in the former synagogue in the Kriegshaber district. It receives around 22,000 visitors annually, more than half of whom are students.
