Dear friends,
over the last weeks we are expierencing a wonderful hot summer in Berlin. Since weeks we have temperatures around 90° Fahrenheit or 30° Celsius and more! This way (and because German apartments usually do not have aircondition) we learned how wonderful it is to have a real good aircondition in our Mercedes Van.
Summerflowers in our neighborhood
Ai Weiwei is in Berlin
Since he finally received a passport from the chinese authorities, the famous chinese artist Ai Weiwei moved this month to Berlin. His wife and his little son waited for more than a year in Berlin for him to come. In autumn he will become a professor of art in the university of art in Berlin. He is also a member of the academy of arts in Berlin, whose new president since May 2015 is Jeanine Meerapfel, a jewish film director from Buenos Aires. We welcome him very much. His studios are right beside Olafur Eliasson's studios in Prenzlauer Berg. The art-scene in Berlin becomes very rich with him as a member. We are very proud.
European Makkabi Games 2015 in Berlin a big success
After the Makkabi Games 2015 ended (July 27- August 5) here are the final results:
Not unusual the hosting team won most medals followed by the US-Team. We had the pleasure to guide some athlets from the US-Bridge team. They were here for about two weeks.
Although most of the athlets have been hosted in a huge hotel in the Neukölln-area of Berlin, which is well known for a dense arabic population, almost nothing anti-semitic happened during the games.
The bridge team was very surprised how lovely Berlin is and how gentle the Berliners are. They found no evidence of anti-semitism during their stay. At memorial "Track 17" we had with them a touching commemoration service before the games were officially opened.
Special exhibition in front of the central train station
This is exactly what we can tell you: Germany and especially Berlin is actually the most safe place for jews in Europe.
By the way: During the games and up until now in front of the Berlin central train station we still have the exhibit about excluded Jewish Stars in the Nazi-time. Please have a look at the
Beate Klarsfeld got honored by our president
In 1968 the german borne Beate Klarsfeld did something extraordinairy in german history: She slapped the german chancelor Kurt Georg Kiesinger in his face and called him: "Nazi, Nazi, Nazi!". This happened in Berlin's convention center. Of course she became an unwanted person in those times. Because she had been married to Serge Klarsfeld, a french holocaust-survivor, she was not sent to prison, being of french nationality by marriage.
Serge and Beate Klarsfeld became almost as famous in hunting Nazis as Simon Wiesenthal. And now, after such a long time she got the right place in german history as a brave righteous person. The german president Joachim Gauck honored her with the highest medal Germany can give, the "Bundesverdienstkreuz". We are proud of her - it was a shame how many former Nazis were in our government in those old days.
Kiril Petrenko new conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
After Sir Simon Rattle's announcement to leave the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 2018 for a long time we waited for a successor to be acclaimed by the orchestra itself. This orchestra is the only one in the world electing its own conductor. Like voting for a new pope it was not an easy way to come to a decision: In the second approach with Kiril Petrenko another jewish person was chosen to be the one. So now - in 2018 - we will have three leading jewish musicians in our public life: Daniel Barenboim (director of Staatsoper unter den Linden), Barry Kosky (director of Komische Oper) and Kiril Petrenko.
Tanz im August - Dancing festival
Unfortunately the Jewish Cultural Days 2015 have been cancelled by the leader of the Jewish Community in Berlin. Don't ask us why.
Instead of this cultural event we want to lead your attention to the dancing festival "Tanz im August" which takes place on several locations here in Berlin from August 13 to September 9.
Berlin Art Week
In September one more major cultural event takes place: The Berlin Art Week! taking place in many galleries this is a wonderful event for art-lovers. From Sept. 15 - 20 you will be able to visit the Berlin Art Week.
Berlin bakery mentioned in the Boston Globe
Germany is famous for its bread - isn't it? Now a Berlin organic bakery "Ben's bakery" made it to the news in the Boston Globe. Benjamin Tugwell and Timothy Naughton work hard to make us bread-addicts feel well - be invited! Berlin is a honeypot for organic baking and living - at each corner you find organic supermarkets and at local farmers markets fresh vegetables and fruits from the surroundings are sold in highest quality - a paradise for food-lovers.
A bit of fashion
German designers and Berliners especially are wonderful people: creative, open, tolerant. So we want to show you one example that we just noticed by guerilla-marketing leaving stickers all over the city with a remarkable content: COEXIST!
Isn't that a wonderful statement?
Taking a boat ride on the lakes of Berlin and Potsdam
We highly recommend a boat ride on one of our lakes in summertime: It is a wonderful way to see Berlin and Potsdam from a different view. We took a 3-hours boat ride last Sunday from Berlin-Wannsee to Potsdam and back - and after all of these years we still again fell in love with our beautiful city! Some impressions here:
Sue enjoyed the boat ride on Wannsee-lake
"Gone to Ground: A woman's extraordinary account of Survival in the Heart of Nazi Germany" (available as a book, e-book and on your Kindle) - NOW AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH
We just want to repeat this recommendation, because this story is a very good and touching description about surviving in the underground in Berlin: So many shades between good and bad!
Dr. Hermann Simon, the director of the Centrum Judaicum (Neue Synagoge Berlin), published the diary of his mother hiding during the Nazi-time. Now this book is published in English as well. Damian Witworth recently published an article on Times UK about this book.
For Hermann Simon it was a painful work to put together the memories of his mother. To read this is very touching and gives us a bit of an idea how hard it was to survive in those times.
Read the article from Feb. 26, 2015 at the Times UK Website Times-article (subscription-based! - 1£ for the first 30 days for new subscribers)
Here you can get the eBook:
False passport with Marie Jalowicz-Simon's foto © Dr. Hermann Simon
Just one more little thing - improved service
We've listened to what our clients want:
We know that connection to the internet becomes more and more important for our clients - uploading fotos, connecting to mail-servers, following the maps etc. - we make it happen!
Since a few weeks we offer a limited free WiFi access in our car (WLan). Daily access of 250 MB of data is free - and if you need more, you can get 1 additional Gigabyte for just 5 Euros. If in the future there will be a mobile-data-flatrate available in Germany (T-Mobile) we will skip the limit, but unfortunately at the moment it isn't.
Please enjoy the experience of touring with us, we do our best to please you.
For today we say Good-bye
and wish you a wonderful upcoming
holiday-season!
Sue (Shoshana) and Eckart (Aaron) Arns
your Berlin Dream-Team
August 16, 2015
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Sue Arns
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Germany
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