Dear friends,

it has been a long time since we sent our last newsletter. We had quite a busy year. Thanks to all of you for recommending us to your friends. By now we get about 90% of our business by word of mouth - most of our customers say what they really appreciate is the very personal way we approach our customers and the fact that we work with our heart and after so many years are still enthusiastic about touring.

About our privat life

The exciting news are: We found survivors of my family! Since my mum died when I was 12 always saying that "we have no family" I never questioned it. I always believed that I am the only one upon this whole world without any aunts, uncles and cousins. I only knew my grandparents had passed.

In newsletter 2010/03 we informed about what we found in Prague of my grandmothers family but what we did not know was that my grandfather had a brother and 2 sisters.

The 2 sisters unfortunately were deported and murdered as my grandfather was but his brother Martin Aronhold survived and so did his son Heinz. Heinz was a cousin of my mum and had a sister, Marga. Well - what shall I tell you? We found Heinz' wife Ingrid - my aunt and visited her on December 8, she lives nearby Stuttgart.

When talking to her we learned that Marga (my moms other cousin) had a son who lives nearby Frankfurt. For 10 years I lived about 5 miles away from where my family lives in a village nearby their village not knowing that! They all had been searching for my mother but who knows why it did not work. We will soon meet them (as soon as the snow allows it they'll visit us in Berlin).

We'll keep you informed and send more pics when we had our family visiting us. Aunt Ingrid will visit us with her son probably in March this year. She is 86 and looks pretty as you can see in the pic above.

We also found out that some of our relatives are buried at the Jewish Cemetery Weissensee. We went there and visited all graves! My grandfathers parents and his brother (father in law of aunt Ingrid) are buried there - we just did not know all of that! It is so amazing.

Luckily our Jewish cemetery in Weissensee has such a good archive and our special thanks go to Mr. Pohl, who has been always extremely helpful and kind and gave us all documents and information he had available in the archives so we have names now, dates of birth and Eckart Aaron could go back in his research to the 18th century.

We learned that the famous mathematician Siegfried Heinrich Aronhold is part of our family. Unfortunately none of his children are alive.

Visiting the grave of my great-grandparents

Searching for Esther Mildred Hoffmann

We also found out, that the famous photographer Ruth Bernhard was the daughter of an aunt of my mum, Gertrud Aronhold, married to Lucian Bernhard, who emigrated to the US. Also Ruth emigrated and died at the age of 102 only 4 years ago, in 2006, after donating her collection to Princeton University.

The marriage of her mother with Lucian Bernhard only lasted 2 years and afterwards Gertrud Aronhold (my grandfathers sister) married Valentin Hoffmann and they had another daughter, Esther Mildred Hoffmann, who emigrated to Glendale, California. She might have married and changed her name, perhaps she has children there? We are trying to find out more, but just wanted to make this announcement, perhaps somebody knows about Esther Mildred Hoffmann and/or her children? She also is a cousin of my mom.

Israel Film-Festival in Berlin from January 28 - 30, 2011

For those of you visiting Berlin at the end of this month might be of interest the Israel Film-Festival - to see more click here:

External link to the exhibiton-website

Stolpersteine (Stumbling-Stones) by Gunter Demnig

You certainly remember the Stolpersteine (Stumbling-Stones) in the streets that I pointed out during our tours. Except the customers that I guided recently, whom I could not show those stones due to the masses of snow, I explained, that in the meantime we do have approx. 26.000 in Germany, about 6.000 in Berlin, commemorating deported, murdered Jews in front of their last residences. In Güntzelstrasse 49 we found a house with 21 Stolpersteine!

Stolpersteine for my family

Eventually and after a long bureaucratic fight that took us 5 years, we could lay down the Stolperstein for my mother, who survived escaping to Colombia.

The artist who started this art- and commemoration project, Gunter Demnig, emphasises that his commemoration is for ALL victims, the ones who were murdered and those ones who had to leave and lost everything.

There was a bureaucratic coordinator who was fighting against my mom being commemorated. Even though in other cities there are Stolpersteine for survivors who lost their home, their family and everything, we were unable to lay down the stone due to this burocratic coordinator.

Eventually, the artist, Gunter Demnig made the Stolperstein a couple of years ago and we had it in our living room. At the end the artist was tired of this bureaucracy boycotting his commemoration-art and just laid it down for us without any further official agreement.

Stolpersteine for my grandfather and my mother

The story of my mother: My mom left Berlin 1937 at the age of 21. She left her mother behind knowing that she would die soon of cancer. Her father fled to Prague from where he was deported as well as my mothers aunt Elsa and murdered. The other aunts Gertrud and Elise were deported right away from Berlin and murdered. Only one uncle survived with his son.

The sons wife is my aunt Ingrid, whom we found recently (see pic above). We will lay down Stolpersteine for all deported members of our family as soon as we have all addresses where they lived when they were deported.

My mom died when I was 12 and ever since I remember I would ask her "Mummy, why don't I have grandparents and aunts and cousins like other children?" my mum would answer "… because we have no family!". So I knew nothing, neither names nor for whom to look when we started researching on my family.

My very special thanks to Eckart Aaron, my husband. He has been researching day and night for many years until we found now in November some survivors. We cannot describe how happy we are. The worse was that I had no history, I did not know anything about my roots, my family.

Now at least I know a bit and have a history. Eckart Aaron has been going back to the 18th century. For special interest you may visit the website Eckart Aaron made for my family here www.aronhold.de

External link to www.stolpersteine.com

Commemoration of the Book Burning on May 10, 2010

As every year since the mid 90's many Berliners come together at the Book Burning Memorial at Bebelplatz to read in public for 24 hours or more those books that were burned on May 10, 1933. Here are some pictures of the last happening. There were chairs on the whole plaza. On each chair one of the books that had been burned by the Nazis.

Berlin in the summertime

Seldom enough we do have time to spend on our own during the high season. But this year we spent half a day on the "Bundespressestrand", the beach nearby the main train station and Reichstag that we always show on our tours. It was just lovely! Unfortunately no dogs allowed, therefore we won't be there too often.

Commemoration of the Pogrom on Nov. 9, 1938 (so-called "Reichskristallnacht")

On this very special day several commemorations took place in front of the memorials that we visited with you on our tours, as well as marches from the former gathering points where the Jews were assembled to the deportation stations to commemorate the suffering of the Jewish people.

In Germany this is a very ambivalent day on which we commemorate so many sad things but also the happy night when the wall came down in 1989:

• Nov. 9, 1918 = Abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
• Nov. 9, 1923 = Hitler-Putsch
• Nov. 9, 1938 = Pogrom in Germany (so-called "Kristallnacht")
• Nov. 9, 1989 = The Berlin wall comes down

At all memorials the government and Berliners layed down flowers and lighted candles, here I am attaching one of the memorial at former deportation station Grunewald. Also a very moving foto in Güntzelstrasse 49, where there are 21 Stolpersteine and the neighbours lit a candle and put some flowers to commemorate.

Poverty in Berlin

We are always talking about the good economy in Germany - but when we see the people of low income lining up to get some food we remember that poverty is increasing here as well. We thought this should be worth to be mentioned in our newsletter. This picture was taken shortly before x-mas 2009.

Synagoge in Rykestrasse

Luckily the beautiful temple in Rykestrasse (not to be confused with the Neue Synagoge with the beautiful golden dome) was rebuilt for approx. 17 million Euros and was open to the public to admire it twice a week. Sometimes when it was open we had a chance to take our customers into the temple to admire one of the few old temples in its full beauty.

Since a year this is not possible anymore - there is no money left for the security in order to open it to the public. German bureaucracy…

Welcome Party for new members of the Jewish Community Berlin 2010

On November 14 we assisted to a party to which the Jewish Community of Berlin invited all new members.

Among them my dear husband Eckart Aaron, who converted to Judaism in February 2010. There was a lot of speeches, singing, dancing and a buffet for dinner.

Eckart Aaron and all new members were given little presents. Eckart Aaron and another lady were the only Germans among a lot of Russians.

We were happy we found one person to talk to in our language. On the second picture you see Lala Süsskind, the chairlady of the Berlin Jewish Community, holding a speech for all new members. The Jewish Community maintains our temples, schools, Kindergarten, old age home etc.

General information on Shabbat services, kosher restaurants etc.

Eckart Aaron has renewed our websites and for all of you coming this year to Berlin here is a link that gives you a wonderful overview www.jewish-touring-berlin.com/links.htm

An overview for concerts, museums etc. to be found here www.sue-arns.de - please keep in mind that those are only some of the events and museums, what we considered of most interest.

A happy and healthy 2011 (5771)

For all of you go our best wishes for a healthy and happy 2011 (5771). Berlin is full of snow and we are quite enjoying it. But we won't be sad once it becomes spring ;-)

Schalom and hope to see you again soon!

Sue and Eckart Aaron Arns

your Berlin Dream-Team

January 2nd, 2011

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Sue Arns Stadtführungen (former Sue Blumenthal) Landshuter Str. 28 10779 Berlin sue@arns.de www.sue-arns.de www.jewish-touring-berlin.com www.aronhold.de