Berlin's Wailing Wall

The entryway of the new Szloma Albam House in Berlin will showcase a 100-square-meter (1076-square-foot) replica of Jerusalem's Western Wall. Stone quarried near Jerusalem was brought in to build the wall, which will include plants and cracks like the original.

Jerusalem's Western Wall has been a Jewish holy site for thousands of years. Many people come to the wall to pray, leaving tiny pieces of paper with prayers written on them stuck in the cracks. The Western Wall is also known as the Wailing Wall because of the tears Jews have shed there.

Berlin's Jewish community growing

The Szloma Albam House will open Sept. 2 in Berlin's Wilmersdorf neighborhood as a community center. It provides a sign of the growth and vitality of Berlin's 12,000-member Jewish community. Before the Nazis came to power, there were an estimated 160,000 Jews living in Berlin.

During World War II, Jews in all of Nazi-occupied Europe were deported and killed as part of the Nazi's "Final Solution." Approximately 6 million European Jews were killed during the Holocaust, about 170,000 of those were German Jews.

Replica provides a symbol

Members of the Chabad-Lubavitch organization traveled to Jerusalem and photographed a section of the wall. Earlier this month, 19 tons of "Jerusalem Gold" sandstone quarried from the region was brought to Berlin. Using the photographs, the wall was chiseled and installed to match the original.

"This is a symbolic part of making Berlin a central hub of Jewish life again," the center's executive director, Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal told the Associated Press.

The replica will be located in the center's entryway. The Western Wall replica will not be used for worship, but as a symbol and reminder of the center's mission.