Copenhagen

The new Danish-Jewish Museum only opened a few years ago in the traditional main building of the Royal... Library on the government island of Slotsholmen. The well-known architect Daniel Libeskind, who also designed, among other things, Berlin's Jewish Museum or the Nussbaum Museum in Osnabrück, designed the slanting rooms inside. The collection focuses on Jewish culture, art and history in Denmark from the first wave of immigration in the 17th century until today. Visitors can gain an insight into the traditions of Danish Jewish communities by looking at about 3,000 partly private exhibits. They also learn of the fate of individuals during the period of the German occupation of Denmark. The exhibition also deals with the flight of Danish Jews from the German occupiers via Øresund to Sweden. In October 1943, fishermen from Zealand saved about 7,200 fellow Jewish citizens from the much-feared deportation to German concentration camps by helping them flee across the narrow straits at Øresund to safety in Sweden - in the middle of the Second World War, this was a unique rescue mission. more

Copenhagen's State Museum of Art is taking a new approach as of 2006: Denmark's leading art museum is... now showing 700 years of art from its inventories in a combination that makes new and old connections more visible than before. Key masterpieces by Cranach, Titian, Rembrandt, Matisse, Picasso and Nolde as well as Nordic artists such as Eckersberg, Hammershøi and Kirkeby are being shown together, entering into new relations to each other. This new concept enables the State Museum of Art to trace a far-reaching range of western art from the early Renaissance period until the modern day and at the same time to make the different forms of expression in art clearly visible. The scope extends from drawings to oil paintings, from etchings to photographs, from sculptures in stone, bronze and wood to collage, videos and installations. Although the total number of almost 1,600 exhibited works is mainly shown in chronological order, the museum strives to exhibit some of the items of its collection among works from an entirely different period, for example by creating "art islands" as well by highlighting viewpoints that are contemporary today. If you wish to view international art from an earlier period, this is mainly on show in the white extension in the "new" State Museum of Art. Contemporary art is exhibited in the modernized rooms in the red, older museum building. For temporary exhibitions, there is a new "focus room". Regular activity sessions are available for kids in the children's workshop. Entry is free. more

Museums often tell the story of victories and major successes in politics, the military world and art.... This Workers' Museum is quite different: it dedicates its four exhibitions to the minor, hard-won successes of the working class. You can learn much about class struggle and state repression. The miserable housing, working and living conditions as well as child labour, the early beginnings of the trade union movement, police espionage and incarcerations are explained in detail here. In particular, the small, original apartment of the Sørensen family, whose life is featured over three generations, visually displays the oppressive misery and poverty of the working classes. The large hall in the rear part of the building was at the heart of Copenhagen's organized workers' association for many decades. Important socialist leaders and communists appeared here, from August Bebel to Wilhelm Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg to Clara Zetkin. more