East-West/West-East

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My heart skipped a beat when I saw it: a real Turkish kuruyemiş (dry foods) store, straight out of Istanbul. Chickpeas, nuts, dried apricots, as far as the eye could see. The boy behind the counter even called me “abi”. And then I noticed the Turkish bakery next door, and the berber salonu (barber shop) and the ocakbaşı (grill-restaurant) across the street. Up and down Oranienstrasse, the main commercial drag of the Kreuzberg neighborhood, there were more Turkish establishments than I could count, intermingled with funky restaurants and shops of a non-Turkish character.

Kreuzberg once abutted the wall that separated East and West Berlin; indeed, it was the last frontier of West Berlin. As such, it became a place for those at the fringes of society, from down-at-heel artists to the Gastarbeiter (guest-workers) brought in to replace East German workers cut off by the Wall. Most of these guest-workers were recruited from Turkey and were from the start viewed as temporary by German officials. However, the reality is that many stayed, even if they remained “temporary” for more than forty-years. The result was a parallel Turkish universe, particularly in Kreuzberg, where up to one in three residents is of Turkish origin. (Actually, I read somewhere that Berlin would be the fourth-largest Turkish city if it were in Turkey!) Only in 2001 were laws changed so that non-“blood” Germans born in Germany could be granted German citizenship.

While it is perhaps too early to know how (or if) the change in law will help bridge the German-Turkish gap, there are signs in Kreuzberg that a certain crossing of the East-West divide (both in the generally cultural and more specifically Berlin senses) is occuring. Turks and bohemian Germans were mingling, cracking sunflower seeds outside the kuruyemiş shop; pierced and tattooed punks shop alongside headscarf-wearing Turkish grandmothers; soccer fans of both sides support German and Turkish teams. I will have to keep an eye on Kreuzberg.

Crossing the Oberbaumbrucke, a bridge once used to exchange spies East to West or West to East, I left Kreuzberg and entered Friedrichshain, the frontier of former East Berlin. Here, too, the artists and immigrants have settled, spilling over the river from Kreuzberg. The East Side Gallery, a stretch of the extant Wall that is covered in murals, marks the boundry. But it no longer divides.

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