Jewish Community Center
After the Holocaust, most of the few Jews who returned to Berlin were immigrants from Eastern Europe. Chairman Heinz Galinski promoted the grounds of the former Fasanenstraße Synagogue to be chosen for the building of a new Jewish Community Center (Jüdisches Gemeindehaus Fasanenstraße). On 10 November 1957, the West Berlin mayor Willy Brandt attended the ceremony of laying its cornerstone. The old ruins were removed, but a few surviving elements, such as the main portal, were kept as decoration of the new building designed in the Modern style of the 1950s. The Gemeindehaus was inaugurated on September 27, 1959.
On November 9, 1969, during ceremonies to commemorate the Kristallnacht, the Tupamaros West-Berlin attempted to attack the Community Center; the bomb, supplied by undercover government agent Peter Urbach, failed to explode.
Since 2006 the building hosts the Jewish adult education centre and administrative departments as the Community Center has moved to the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Straße.
Read more about this topic: Fasanenstrasse Synagogue
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