Sue Arns (former Blumenthal)

Dear friend, this is the new Berlin-Newsletter from Sue Arns Stadtführungen (former Sue Blumenthal)

Landshuter Str. 28

10779 Berlin

sue@arns.de

www.sue-arns.de

www.jewish-touring-berlin.com

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And here is the Newsletter:

Hello from Berlin, Germany – to all our friends and customers in the US and overseas from Sue and Eckart Arns (to some of you still known as Sue Blumenthal).

I decided to bring up a newsletter from time to time, not too often and not too long, but giving you an overview over the developments in this, our city Berlin, the Jewish communitiy in Berlin and also from time to time about our private life (Eckarts and mine).

I will try to do it as briefly as possible, easy to read and enjoyable. Here we go:

About us and our private life

Most of you might remember that my mother didn't raise me Jewish and I hardly knew a thing about religion since I wasn't taught when I was little. My mother used to say "We are Jewish but you choose whatever you wanna be" - and that was it.
I felt that I was missing something, I longed to join and meet Jewish people because they are like me. And that's why we started going to a reformed, liberal temple in March 2008. We both did like it so much that we are assisting every week to Kabbalat Shabbat and – when possible – also to Schacharit Leschabbat. We feel that there is the family I never had and Eckart has felt welcome as never before in his life.
At the end, Eckart decided to start converting to Judaism. The painful part of being a Jew is now behind him: His Brit Mila (circumcision) was done November 4th, in the Jewish Hospital of Berlin. He says he has no pain and everything went wonderful with our rabbi assisting to say the Bracha and the anaesthesist, a friend of ours, who gave him a wonderful anaestesia that made him sleep with lovely dreams, which he unfortunately forgot. At least one thing he could enjoy was to sleep like a baby.
His family has accepted after some initial doubts and that's what he told them: That he feels like being part of a family he already wanted to belong to when he was little.

His next step is learning to read Hebrew and then the Beit Din = His Exam in front of 3 rabbies who will approve him as a Jew.

So let's welcome him as part of our tribe.

71 years anniversary of the pogrom night (so called "cristal night")

On November 9, parallell to the party at the Brandenburg Gate we Jews (and many non-Jews who joined us) were commemorating November 9 as the day when Hitler and his executors burnt down our temples, destroyed shops and made very clear what the destiny of Jews would be in Nazi-Germany.

As most of you know, I do not use the term "cristal night" since it was a term that the Nazis put up. Several celebrations took place in commemoration of the deportation and massmurdering of European Jews, among them a march to the deportation station Grunewald, where I saw (on tv-news) policemen lighting candles to commemorate what happened 71 years ago, German police did not always behave so friendly towards us Jews and I admit, that I was deeply touched watching several policemen escorting the commemoration but at the same time lighting the candles of commemoration.

At all Jewish places where we got yesterday we found flowers and candles. Good feeling. And sad feeling at the same time.

Gleis17 trainstation Grunewald

Among the flowers was the Senat of Berlin, German Military (Bundeswehr) but not the German Railway Company (Deutsche Bahn), who transported the millions of Jews to the extermination camps and without whom the whole massmurdering would have not been possible.

20 years after the wall came down - anniversary

Berlin has had a series of festivities and commemorations to the coming down of the Berlin wall, which happened actually without being planned that way and after a "little mistake with great consecuences" in a speech held by Gunther Schabowski on November 9, 1989.

The big party was celebrated besides the Brandenburg Gate. About 30 heads of state from all over the world came to join the Berliners and our chancellor Angela Merkel to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the coming down of the wall, among them Hillary Clinton for the US.

Dominoes

Thousands of young students across the country painted approx. 1.000 dominoes, which were set up in a raw following the course of the former wall from the Reichstag to the Sony Center for the event scheduled on November 9 to be knocked over for a domino effect.

The event was meant to symbolize the domino-like fall of communism across Eastern Europe 20 years ago and it was started symbolically by Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity labour movement in Poland.

Dominoes

During the speech our chancellor Angela Merkel held, she did mention, that November 9 is also the day on which synagogues were burnt all over the country in 1938 and that we shall never forget it. That this is not only a day of joy.

As a matter of fact, November 9 has been a day of reportable events:

  • 1918 Empereor Wilhelm II abdicates and leaves for Holland

  • 1923 Hitlers putch attempt in Munich

  • 1938 Pogrom night (so called "Reichskristallnacht")

  • 1989 Coming down of the Berlin wall

Neues Museum – Egyptian Collection

The Neues Museum was re-opened on October 17 with its wonderful Egyptian collection and Nefertiti was allocated again in a dark room and she is still a unique treasure to our city. Beside, copies of the Schliemann excavations in Troja were put up (the genuines are in Russia since World War II) and all in all it is worthwhile more than one visit.

David Chipperfield certainly did a wonderful job in re-constructing this antique building from World-War-II damages.

Right in front of the Neues Museum is the Gallery "Contemporary Fine Arts" from Heiner Bastian – also built by David Chipperfield. Wonderful building and collection.

The Boros Collection

Christian Boros owns an advertising agency in Wuppertal and Berlin. Being an art collector since 1990 he owns art pieces from Damian Hirst, Olafur Eliasson, Elizabeth Payton, Tobias Rehberger, John Bock and many others.

His private museum is inside an old air raid shelter in Berlin Mitte since June 2008 and needs a prior reservation. It is only open to the public on Saturdays for a 2 hours tour and costs 10 Euros. You should either ask your concierge to make the reservation for you or better, since the tours are fully booked long time ahead, go to the website http://www.sammlung-boros.de/index.php?id=2810&L=1&id=2810 yourself and do a booking on your own as soon as possible prior to your Berlin-tour.

New Services for our customers

For those customers interested in art galleries, needing a transportation-service and some advice, Eckart will be happy to take you for as many hours as you need him. Please notice that some art galleries require a prior reservation which might be done by your concierge.

Eckart is also offering pick up services and transfers airport – hotel – airport.

Please remember that beside of Jewish tours we also offer tours to Museums and Palaces, Potsdam and that I am licenced and able to guide you through several of those places.

Also Eckart is offering a driverguide-service, the price is less than for both of us.

Please feel free to ask for prices and extras.

It's Christmas-time

Again – as every year – Berlin will beat the record in Christmas markets. Last year we had around 50 of them, some of then opened only Saturday and Sunday. Still, I am sure we will have at least 30 markets opening daily.

Some of the most exciting ones being at Gendarmenmarkt, beside the Staatsoper, beside Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin Spandau, at Kulturbrauerei Prenzlauer Berg (weekends only), Sophienstrasse (weekends only). Don't forget to tell your friends who might be coming to Berlin not to miss this experience.

To warm up, the Germans enjoy having a "Glühwein" - hot red wine with spices such as cinnamon, cloves and sugar, and the good ones even have orange slices.

A not so worthwhile experience is hot beer. I would not drink it – we didn't like it at all.

As always, the Jewish Museum will be offering the Weihnukka-Market. The word Weihnukka was created by German Jews and combines the words "Weihnachten" (for Christmas) and "Chanukka"; its origin is the combined Christmas and Chanukka celebration German assimilated Jews had this time of the year. Therefore, also very worthwhile to be visited.

I think this was it for our first newsletter. Hope you enjoyed reading it.

All the best from Berlin. We hope this mail finds you well and we would love to hear from you.

Goodbye and Shalom from

Sue and Eckart Arns

November 10th, 2009

Sue & Eckart

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