Living Next To, Not With Each Other

The tourists Nadja Sponholz is showing around Kreuzberg haven't had to travel far. A dozen teenagers from Berlin's eastern suburbs, they've been on a bus for about half an hour to visit the city's famous multicultural district.

Then again, Sponholz isn't offering a typical tour. The 26-year-old history student and Kreuzberg native, is trying to breaking down prejudices about a neighborhood many Germans -- even those living less than a few miles away -- don't dare visit.

"I've never really been here because of that -- like you can't walk alone in the streets," said Linda Lahmert, 16, who is training to become a secretary.

Sitting in a Turkish café near a square called Kottbusser Tor, everyone's now sipping sweetened black tea and listening to Sponholz's stories about her part of town. Stories like the one about fanatical Turks who decorate their entire apartments in the colors of their favorite soccer team, or why you shouldn't smoke in the presence of elderly Turkish ladies. They are anecdotes designed to make Kreuzberg seem much less threatening.

"I think it's great that we have this day here," said Lahmert and quickly answers when asked whether she could imagine living here: "Why not? I could learn Turkish."

An immigrant quarter for 300 years

It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea: Turkish has long been the predominant language in the neighborhood.

More than half of the people who live here are of foreign extraction. Turkish fast food stores, groceries, banks and pharmacies cluster around Kottbusser Tor, a run-down traffic circle also known as Little Istanbul. Since the fall of the wall, those who could afford to move elsewhere did so, leaving behind a population that doesn't step outside its own culture and speaks little or no German.

People from more than 100 countries live here: Turks make up the biggest group, followed by immigrants from the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon and other Middle Eastern states. There's little interaction between the groups and many people depend on social welfare, prompting conservative politicians to see the neighborhood as an example of failed integration and the problems big cities face when trying to integrate foreigners.

Others, such as Kreuzberg Museum Director Martin Düspohl, like to put things in perspective: The Turks have only been here since the 1960s and it took others much longer to feel at home. "The Huguenots settled here in 1704, but it took a century for them to stop feeling French," he says.

Integration clearly has suffered some drawbacks over the last 15 years, Düspohl adds. Rising unemployment and xenophobic attacks have made Turkish families wary of their German neighbors and led them to turn inward. "Now people who come here on work placement have to pray during the day," Düspohl says, referring to workers who now demand regular prayer breaks. "That wasn't the case during the 80s."

More headscarves around

Manuela Seidel, the principal of the area's elementary school, has also seen religion take on a more important role. "It sounds trite, but there's more headscarves around," she says, adding that 93 percent of her 600 students don't have German parents.

Integration is a concept Seidel wouldn't associate with the neighborhood. "You'd have to integrate the Germans here," she says. "Every (ethnic) group lives by itself and tolerates the other as far as I can tell."

Seidel has been trying to get parents more involved in school activities. Few, however, have shown interest so far, she says. Living in an area where everyone from the grocer to the doctor speaks Turkish doesn’t help integration along, either.

"I don't have to speak German to get by around here," Seidel said, adding that she wants to give her students the necessary tools to succeed. "I don't want to take away their culture, but I want them to be able to lead average, central European lives without having to rely on social welfare."

Next page: Sükrü can't find any German friends

Showcasing Turkish culture

Fatih Haslak seems to be on the right track to accomplish just that. The 22-year-old dreams of opening his own Turkish restaurant and attends a school to learn how to be a manager. He gets his practical training at Burger King.

In his spare time, Haslak (photo) comes to Mevlana mosque, which sits at the bottom of a dilapidated apartment complex that towers over Kottbusser Tor. He's the mosque's secretary and assures visitors that this is a place that's open to anyone.

"We don't have any problems with other cultures," he said, adding that he unfortunately doesn't have time to find German friends. Haslak sees the increase in women wearing headscarves as a normal development: "Wherever Turks live, they try to showcase their culture."

But other Turkish people living in the area view things quite differently. Take Mustafa Sükrü Cakiroglu, who has decorated his office with prayer plates, Turkish flags and a painting of Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern-day Turkey.

"That's just there for my customers," said the interpreter, who has lived in Germany for 30 years. Like Haslak, Cakiroglu also has no German friends in Berlin, a fact he's unhappy about. "There's no opportunity to mix," he says.

Things were different in western Germany, where he lived for many years before coming to the capital. There, Turks and Germans lived next to each other and expressed more interest in their cultures, he said.

He believes that's less likely in Berlin, where immigrants tend to cluster in certain neighborhoods. "I tell everyone to leave," he says and adds that he'd like to move to another part of Germany himself.

A good relationship

Horst Wiessner would never think of leaving Kreuzberg. The 82-year-old has lived in the neighborhood all his life. He's seen it transform from a predominantly German to a mostly Turkish quarter, a fact that doesn't worry him in the least. "We have a really good relationship with our Turkish neighbors," says Wiessner, who is the president of the Kottbusser Tor apartment complex's tenant association.

Thirty years ago, Wiessner (photo) and his late wife were the first ones to move into the complex. They came with high hopes of living in a modern urban building and managed to get a top floor apartment with a roof garden that offers sweeping views across the city. Up there, things haven't changed much, but it's a different story down on the ground.

The building is covered in graffiti and Berlin's drug addicts who hang out in the area use the dark hallways for injections. Despite constant setbacks and disputes with the owners of the building, Wiessner keeps working to improve the neighborhood.

"I have a job here that still isn't finished," he said.

Little cross-cultural contact

Sponholz doesn't even have children of her own yet. "But when I do, they should grow up here," she said after sending off the group of teenagers she led around the neighborhood. "I've acquired so much social competence here, I can see that when I compare myself to others at university."

Sponholz has German parents, she became familiar with Turkish culture through her best friend. She said Kottbusser Tor has changed since she was a child. "There's really very little contact with German society," she said. "It's not necessary, because there's a Turkish infrastructure now."

She says she knows that her neighborhood has its problems. She knows that it's bad that a lot of Germans have left -- but so have a lot of Turkish families, who could afford homes elsewhere. Maybe a new group of immigrants will take over in the future: "Maybe it's going to be a Polish Kreuzberg some day."