The Jüdisches Gemeindehaus on Fasanenstrasse stands on a site that holds more history than most buildings could bear. The original synagogue here was built in 1912, when Charlottenburg was still its own independent city and Leo Baeck, the most important Jewish thinker in Germany at the time, led the congregation. He refused to flee when the Nazis rose to power and was sent to a concentration camp. He survived to become Chairman of the World Union for Progressive Judaism in London after the war.

On 9 November 1938, the synagogue was attacked and burned. Bombs finished the job in 1943. The rubble wasn't cleared until 1957, and the current building replaced it in 1959. One detail survived the destruction: some of the original columns were salvaged and transported to New York, where they now stand in the synagogue on West 66th Street.

VoiceMap's Kurfürstendamm tours use the Gemeindehaus to trace the arc of Jewish life in Charlottenburg, from the congregation's founding years through Kristallnacht and into the postwar community that rebuilt itself in West Berlin.