(JHE) — The Jews in East Prussia History and Culture Association is preparing a museum of local Jewish history to be hosted in the rebuilt New Synagogue in Kaliningrad, Russia (formerly Königsberg, East Prussia).

The New Synagogue, a grandiose domed building, was destroyed on Kristallnacht, and exactly 80 years later, in November 2018, the newly constructed near replica was dedicated on the same spot where the original synagogue stood.

A year later, the Association published a walking tour itinerary of the city’s former Jewish district that can be viewed online or downloaded as a PDF brochure.

This past spring, the Association announced it had received notice of grant from the German Federal Foreign Office to finance the first stage of a permanent exhibition at the synagogue.

The museum “will tell the story of the Jews in East Prussia at this special place, which has been an interface between East and West throughout the ages,” the Association says on its website.

 For over 20 years descendants of East Prussian Jews from all over the world have been telling us stories and opening their family albums, and we have found documents in archives in several countries. The museum will also be a place of remembrance of Jewish forced labor and the Shoah in the East Prussian region.

Jews in East Prussia has now just published a preview showing some specific areas of the museum’s focus.

Photo by: Juden in Ostpreussen e.V.