Unexploded World War II Bomb Found Near Berlin Jewish Museum
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
For the second time in a week, a U.S. World War II bomb is to be defused near Berlin’s Jewish Museum.
The museum announced on its website that it will be closed on Friday while experts dispose of the bomb safely, the second time it has closed for bombs that fell during World War II discovered in the area.
Buses are being rerouted, and homes and offices will be evacuated. Last Sunday, some 12,000 people were evacuated while expert defuser Matthias Rabe and his team rendered yet another dud bomb harmless.
Police said the latest bomb is of the same type as the first, weighing about 550 pounds. But while the first one had two detonators, this one has a single detonator.
The unexploded bombs were found, about 30 feet apart, by construction workers in a 12-foot deep depression near a former flower market hall across the street from the Jewish Museum, alongside the museum’s academy, which houses offices, seminar rooms, a library and an archive.
Such bombs are frequently found during construction work in Germany, even more than 70 years after the end of World War II. According to a 2011 article in Der Spiegel magazine, an average of 15 unexploded aerial bombs are defused daily, the majority in Berlin. Reuters reported recently that 56 tons of unexploded ordinance was defused in 2014 alone.
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