Dansk Jødisk Museum

Description:

• Daniel Libeskind, the architect who submitted the winning design for the World Trade Center Memorial in New York, also designed this museum in a wing of the Royal Library. It's been turned into the national center for Jewish art and culture, with both secular and religious exhibits ranging from films to paintings. The most dramatic exhibits focus on the rescue of Danish Jews in 1943 -- despite Denmark's occupation by the Nazis. Unlike many societies, Danish Jews and "Danish Danes" successfully merged into a single culture, with little tension between them.

  The first minority museum ever to open in Denmark, the museum also holds interest for people who aren't Jewish. In 1906, when the Royal Library was built, it enclosed the Royal Boat House, which was ordered constructed by Christian IV in 1622. The Jewish Museum is in a wing of the Royal Library, which includes the Royal Boat House, making it "a building within a building within a building."

• © Frommer's 2013