The Power of Experience — Visiting the Jewish Museum in Berlin

When I recently visited Berlin, Germany, I was struck by the extraordinary abundance of world-class museums dedicated to art and history. Berlin has long been a crossroads of culture, politics, and intellectual life, but in the twentieth century it also became a stage for some of the most devastating global conflicts in human history. To visit historical museums there is to step into a space of collective trauma—to prepare yourself to encounter the evidence of pain, hatred, and violence.

We had heard that the Jewish Museum was one of the most powerful to visit, and we prepared ourselves to learn about the atrocities Jews experienced leading up to and during World War II.

At first glance, the museum felt more like a modern art installation than a traditional historical exhibit. Sparse personal stories were displayed along the walls, and an avant-garde video played quietly in an alcove. I had expected a chilling, explicit portrayal of some of the most horrific acts in history. I did encounter that reality—but in a way that affected me at my core, not just intellectually.

As I walked down a corridor called Between the Lines, I began to feel confused, anxious, and unsettled. At first, I assumed these feelings were purely internal—an emotional reaction to being in a museum devoted to immense suffering. Not knowing otherwise, I interpreted the discomfort as something self-generated.

Then I saw a sign explaining that the walls were intentionally slanted, the angles slightly off, and the layout interrupted by empty spaces called “voids.” The space had been deliberately designed to create unease.

This architectural choice was meant to evoke what it might have felt like to live as a Jewish person in Germany before and during the Holocaust—disoriented, destabilized, and unsafe. The museum took an experiential approach, allowing visitors to feel history rather than simply learn about it. Most people experience a strong emotional response in the space, though each individual interprets that reaction differently.

The corridor led to three paths, including the Axis of the Holocaust. At its end was an enclosed chamber that felt like a prison cell. It was cold, sharply angled, and tight, with a ceiling nearly thirty feet high. The only window sat far above, barely letting in light. Almost immediately, I found myself crying, overwhelmed by a visceral feeling of being trapped, abandoned, and forgotten.

That experience illuminated something profound about how we interpret our own emotions. We often assume our feelings reflect something inherently wrong with us: I feel uneasy, therefore I must have anxiety. Yet when we recognize the environmental or systemic forces shaping our emotional responses, we gain critical distance and perspective. The feeling may remain, but it no longer defines us—it becomes a normal and understandable reaction to context.

Many environments, whether consciously or unconsciously designed, create feelings of unease, such as inferiority, shame, or powerlessness. People might respond by saying they have a feeling of “imposter syndrome” and blame themselves for not having more confidence and courage. She might think, I don’t belong here. Everyone else is more confident, more capable, more articulate. Too often, this reaction is framed as a personal deficiency rather than as a response to an environment built with metaphorical slanted walls and uneven floors.

The Jewish Museum is not only a place to learn about what happened to Jews in Germany before and during World War II—it is a powerful lesson in how manipulation, perspective, environment, and design shape our inner lives. It teaches us about fear, resilience, and empathy for self and others, and it reminds us of the transformative power of experience.