European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 10, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse A ghetto of migrant workers Block by Block the Crumblin Kreuzberg neighbourhood of Westerlin is becoming a ghetto of turkish migrant workers an their families a slum spreading along the Concrete Wall that slashes through Berlin like a a debris Ridden playground on Talde mar Strasse these brisk afternoons dark skinned women wearing kerchiefs gains the cold Load baby carriages with firewood that their sons and husbands have Cut fro the Trees in the Park. They use it to heat their crowded tenement the bars and Jinbao Parlours of the neighbourhood teenage youths Idle away the time in a futile Cycle of unemployment and isolation. The poverty and illiteracy of Anatolia have been transported into the Urban decay of West be riffs oldest recent years hundreds of thousands of migrant workers have decided to Settle in and have brought their families wit them. But hundreds of thousands of their children Are headed toward & grim future not belonging in West Berlin yet without roots to their parents Homeland. Behcet Gumus dal. 16, lives with a father and Mother in a two room apart ment that has neither Shower Bath nor toilet. He comes to a City run youth Centerton a dilapidated school on Nunyn Stusse to take a Shower and pass the he has lived in Germany since 1985, and he is Lucky he finished a German High school and found a Job in a Metal pipe fac tory after looking for two and a Hal months he says he makes $75 a week before a. Who is 18. Is not so fortunate. I would like to get work he says but there in t he Speaks broken German though he has lived in Berlin for seven years. I used to go to school one Day and skip two and now i m really messed a is on a year s probation after having been convicted of pulling a knife on a Man in a Public toilet and demanding symptoms of this stricken neighbor Hood sound like those that created Newyork s slums conditions unknown in West Germany and West Berlin since the War. There to the big difference that so tar the slums Are staff and that there has been remarkable Cobes Veness among the families who live to them. The streets of Freud org Are still As safest night As in the daytime and fear is not yet As pervasive As on the streets of the South Borul. An 3-year-old Landlady Altoe Schmidt said As she left on a shop Ping trip the turks in my building Are Dean go and see for Kreyzberg with nmn Parks living la the Nanayo Stusse neighbourhood is Notan Faroe. There Are 3.9 million foreigners in West Germany. 1.937,100 of them working and registered with the labor office and about30 per cent of them Are turks. Since a Baa on new recruitment fro outside the common Market went into effect at the beginning of the recession the number of migrant workers has actually unexpectedly in the last two years those who were already in West German began bringing their wives and children to join them taking advantage of changes unsocial Security Laws that entitle any Resi Dent to �5 a month per child. The authorities now estimate that there Are one million wives and children of migrant workers in the big West German cities West Berlin Stuttgart Frankfurt Munich Hamburg and they fear that Heyoung Many barred from taking jobs Are forming a volatile adolescent sub proletariat. Some of them have turned to dealing i drugs said Axel Schumacher a social worker in the Nanny Strasse youth try to make Money by going to the Railroad station and letting themselves be picked up by homosexuals. Eighty per cent of them Don t have a High school the problem of non european minority subcultures is becoming wide thirty per cent of foreign workers in Berlin Are turks. In the bid ovules outside Paris another French cities about one million Chil Dren of foreigners Are growing up and at tending schools. Their parents Are mostly employed at menial jobs. In Switzerland where something less than a million for Eigners live there Are at least 250,000wives and children of migrant workers. In Britain alienated Black youths fro former colonies in the West indies and elsewhere engaged in pitched Battles wit the police last year. But West Germany is different. The for eign population does not come from for eign colonies and when the German invited foreign workers in the Boom years of the 1950s they did not intend the stay Tobe permanent. The Laws Are under to them and Man of the turkish workers Are not sure whether their children May legally stay in West Germany. One Man who did not want to give his name entered the dark and frigid entranceway to his tenement own with us wife and two children carry ing firewood from the nearby went through one uttered Cobblestone courtyard and into a courtyard apartments Are typical of old Bertta. The narrow dark stairwell was peeling and smelted of garbage. I be been Here 10 years the Man have three rooms on the third floor. Why do you want to know i m Happy. Idon t want any All m., said his parents paid 1150 month for their apartment three Dingy crowded rooms overlooking the backcourt of More slum tenements without toilet or Bath. The rent does not seem High but Many turks say they Are gouged by their landlords and must pay More than German tenants. Sixty five per cent of the housing in this District was built before 0900," said Rudi Pietschker the social democratic mayor of Kreuzberg. About 35.000 of the 154,000 people who live Here Are turks we have elementary schools where 65 per cent of the students Are turkish High schools with40 per cent turkish students. The turks la Kreuzberg cannot vote. Foreign workers Are rally Inte grated into West German lab Runions but mayor Pietschker says they have to effective Way to air grievances. We be started a foreigners advisor Council Here with me As a member he said and we try to give them at Leas some voice in Day policies that pie cheer is aware of the dilemma of the Young and regrets that the Law bars those who came Here after december 1974from getting residence permits required to stay is talk in Bonn of lifting the Rule he said. What happens to these kids when their parents take them Back to Anatolia they speak Berlin dialect their Home is Kreuzberg going Back is a Catas for Many staying is no better. I never want to go Back to Ankara things Are terrible All Said. But i Don t know what to do Here. On saturday Igo to the big Apple discotheque downtown and i try to keep Busy Hitler was by Ellen Lent new York times private German study on what children know about Hitler has caused a stir because of the ignorance and confusion displayed. Dieter bos Smann a Flensburg teacher who made the Survey found that Hitler had become a dim figure of the past for the average Young Ster in West Germany. He told an interviewer at his Home that he had collected 2,070 compositions on what i have heard about Adolf Hitler writ ten by students mostly aged 14 to16. He said he was appalled at what some of them had written adding that he considered Only four compositions adequate. One youngster wrote that be believed Hitler was Bora Between 1� and iks and played a leading Rale in getting Germany Back on it feet after world War another described Konrad Adenauer the first postwar Chancellor As one of hit Ler s Hitler was our old Fuhrer said Dirk who is 14 Yean old and attends a Village school in Schles wig Holstun. He did not allow Young people to Wear their hair youngster. Bernd. Wrote Hitler was the Leader Iam not quite sure of what but i think world War 0. He was Small Man and somewhat Stout with a Busby Mustache. He shot himself. The people were truly attached to him. But they did no like that people were not Al Lowed to go out into the streets at our old Fuhrer night. They were shot right away. Hitler was Bossmann said teacher were evidently not fulfil Ling their duty in dealing with the nazi Era which is covered in ninth or tent Grade in current events or history classes. Caroline Kirst a 17-year-Oldfrom Kiel whose class did not take part in the study said whenever got As far As the nazis in school until this she is inthe 12th Grade of High school. Friedo Sachsen an editor of the jewish weekly Adge Meine of Dusseldorf commented thesis of negligence in failing to give the Young generation Ade quate political and historical in sights Are bound to have negative effects on democratic structures Sod society in our Bossmann s study which be plans to publish in Book form has appeared in excerpts in the news papers stirring Public debate. In several schools teachers have setup extra history courses to study the nazi Era. The Flensburg teacher who is32 years old said he first got the idea for the study when he read series of articles on great men and their doctors in which Hitler was included along with Church ill or Bismarck. That seemed absurd to me and i wanted to know whether schoolchildren nowadays considered Hitler one of the world s great men he said. He placed an and in a teachers Magazine asking for contributions. More than a Hundred teachers answered and 88 had their classes write the composition suggested by Bossmann. To assure participation be Promise to maintain the children s anonymity. One fact that emerge was that while most children spoke in terms of abhor rence of the annihilation of the jews few had an explanation or knew More cum the most fragmentary facts. Hitler s mad hatred of jews ran its full course during the War Josef is wrote. He killed jews off like Doris a 16-year-old Girt showed greater interest and More concern than most. A the germans really found the things that Hitler planned no Good she observed Why did they carry them through they Are just Assad As Bossmann who is a social Democrat said he found a differ ence in attitudes Between his own generation and today s Young sters. When i Beard about the mass killings i came Home crying to my Mother to find out Why she and other grownups had not tried to Stop the evil he said. He expressed concern at the positive values teenagers now seem to attach to the Nad Era. A16-year-old described Hitler As a military Genius who almost conquered the whole a boy named Carl wrote that aside of his Many bad deeds. Adolf Hitler also did some Good things Suchias building the first scores of students note aspects of Nad Law and order with apparent approval one pm Regina said children were not like today. They had to be Good and help their was strict and demanded respect Manfred who attends ninth Grade in a roman Catholic High school observed despite Al the cruelties that were committed in the third Reich the social problems were not As great under Hitler As they May 10, 1977 the stars and stripes Page is
