Dear friends:
The most beautiful time of the year has started in Berlin: Spring. Today the temperature is 63° F/17°C - we love it!
About our privat life
Recently and while surfing in the internet, Aaron found that somebody had laid a Stolperstein for one of my ancestors, Henriette Aronhold.
During our research we discovered that a group of Lutheran Christians belonging to the Sophienkirche in Mitte had laid several stumbling stones for Christians of Jewish roots.
Stolperstein is the German word for a stumbling block, an obstacle or "something in the way". The German artist Gunter Demnig has given this German word a new meaning: In 1993 he started his Stolperstein-Project illegally in Cologne, in 1996 in Berlin by laying down in front of the last residences of Jewish citizens a Stolperstein (stumbling stone). The inscriptions start with "here lived...". The idea is that people do not forget how the Jews were dragged out of their residences, work or hiding places. In the meantime we do have more than 30.000 Stolpersteine in Germany and several more in other countries. In Berlin around 8.000. Usually either the inhabitants of buildings collect money to sponsor this project or we relatives ask for a Stolperstein. By now the price per stumbling stone is 120 Euros.
My ancestor, Henriette Aronhold was the daughter of a famous mathematician, Siegfried Heinrich Aronhold. In order to become a professor of math he converted and became a Christian. All of his 3 children were baptized and raised Christian. They all passed away, except Henriette, who was deported in 1944 with 83 years of age from the old age home she was living in.
We met this wonderful Christians on January 19 and after our dinner with them we visited Henriettes stumbling stone, laid white roses in the middle of the night. We invited them for a tour of Jewish sites in Berlin on Feb. 22 to those hidden places even Berliners do not know. It was a very special and memorable day.
A wonderful new Jewish restaurant in the area of Mitte "The Kosher Classroom" (Update: Closed since Feb. 2013!)
In Auguststrasse in Mitte is a former Jewish school for girls (Jüdische Mädchenschule), which has been renewed. Inside now are several art galleries and this extraordinary kosher (fleischig) restaurant beside some other places.
TheKosherClassroom, so called because it is located in a former classroom, offers a Kabbalat-Shabbat-Dinner every Friday at 19.30h with a first class vegan and fleishig meal. A wonderful occasion to meet other people.
Responsible for the brilliant food is the Michelin-starred chef Franz Raneburger, who is famous for his excellent cuisine in several first class restaurants in Berlin. For kashrut Rabbi Ehrenberg and the Maschgiach Leonid Golzmann.
On Sunday they offer an outstanding brunch with 30 different salads, 8 warm dishes and 7 desserts.
The service is distinguished. Everything was excellent and outstanding. Never in our life we had such a first-class kosher food - we just love it!
On March 30 we will attend the Kabbalat-Shabbat-Dinner.
Gerhard Richter "Panorama" in the Neue Nationalgalerie until May 13
Around 140 paintings and 5 sculptures from all periods are on this special exhibit in the New National Gallery. This exhibition shows a wonderful retrospective of his work, in conjunction with Tate Modern in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, carefully selected together with the artist himself, offer visitors a profound insight into his stylistically and thematically diverse body of work.
Several canvases that have long been accepted into the modern canon, such as Ema (1966), the nude descending the stairs, and Betty (1988), whose head is turned away from the viewer, are combined here with rarely seen works and a few that have never been on display before. Key works from a particular period, group or series are placed alongside works that either stand out on their own or pre-echo later developments.
Structured for the most part chronologically, the exhibition's dramaturgical flow centres around a dialogue, running over decades, held between abstraction and figuration; a dialogue that can be traced all the way back to the very first painting in Richter's catalogue raisonné, Table from 1962.
The Exhibition website is here: Watching this little movie will give you a good idea of the exhibit.
Gerhard Richter "October 18, 1977 (1988)" in the Alte Nationalgalerie until May 13
Of all Gerhard Richter's work series, the fifteen-part painting cycle October 18, 1977 is his best known. It was created a good ten years after the events of what is referred to as the 'German Autumn'.
October 1977 marked the culmination of the crisis in West Germany instigated by the terrorist activities of the Red Army Faction (RAF, sometimes known as the 'Baader-Meinhof Group'). The hijacking and subsequent liberation of the Lufthansa plane, the Landshut, the hostage-taking and murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations, the deaths of the terrorists Gudrun Ensslin, Andreas Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe in the high-security prison Stuttgart-Stammheim - all these events happened within a few days and weeks of each other and shook the nation to its core.
In his paintings, Gerhard Richter concentrates on the members of the RAF, most of all on Ensslin, Baader and Raspe who were found dead in their cells. But his depiction of the protagonists and their respective scenes of death evokes more than just the events surrounding the date of the title. By reproducing in sombre shades of grey the images culled from the press and blurring them, sometimes beyond recognition, he also portrays the young democracy's paralysis in the face of a threat from within.
This was all for today. We send you our best wishes.
B'Shalom
We hope to see you soon in our beautiful city!
Sue and Eckart Aaron Arns
your Berlin Dream-Team
March 18, 2012
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