Photo: www.passiveaggressivenotes.com

When you arrive in Berlin, chances are you’ll end up in a flatshare or a sublet. While we’ve no experience of the former, having too many things (and cats) to squeeze into a single room, we can impart some wisdom about the latter.

On paper subletting is straightforward – you pays your money (bills included) and move into an apartment which is set up with everything you’ll need for your first few months in Berlin. In reality, it’s anything but simple.

Here are some tips to help you circumnavigate the surprisingly tricksy waters of subletting:

DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!
Berliners may be liberal compared to other Germans, but the fact that you are looking after their home means they expect you to take extra-special care of it. They might act all cool and “whatever” and “mi casa su casa” but they expect to find it exactly how they left it (if not cleaner).

When the tenants of our first sublet returned, they grilled us on the whereabouts of a mouldy old bathmat, a bowl made out of banana skins (something I think we would remember seeing) and some missing coathangers. Because, in their minds, we moved in, used their stuff and put it back in all the wrong places. Cheeky, huh?

WATER THE PLANTS!
It’s not enough that Berlin is one of the greenest cities in Europe (with 2,500 public green spaces!); its residents are all about bringing the outside indoors. They all have plants, and they love those plants - even more than we love our cats, which is worrying. So when we asked one tenant what we could do with plants that may have been poisonous to our kitties, we should have known that the response “I don’t care” meant something like “leave them with my neighbours” not, say,”just throw them in the trash”. Oopsie!

DON’T LOSE THE KEYS!
So we’re probably sounding like nightmare guests right about now. This one’s my bad. Within our first month, I’d managed to drop a set of keys down those grates that are conveniently located in front of every door in Berlin. The set with the keys to the post box attached – so we had to replace that as well as trying to replace the keys.

You should know: the chunky keys to the front door of your building, with the ID number on, are basically impossible to replace (I think the tenant has to submit an application to the building manager). So, as we were helpfully told at the latest handover, “if you’re going to lose a key, don’t lose this one” – as he handed it to us, attached to the rest of our single set of keys.

Photo: www.passiveaggressivenotes.com

DON’T EXPECT TO HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED!
All Berliners are, to some degree, hippies. That’s why they live here and not, say, downtown Manhattan. That’s why they all have plants, and that’s why they need very little else.

Pretty early on, we faced up to the fact that a dishwasher is a luxury, but here are just a few of the things we were amazed that people could live without: a kettle; a toaster; a can opener and, more importantly, a bottle opener; curtains; warm showers. We did, however, find plenty of dirty socks and underwear, and healthy chunks of hair clogging up the drain of that freezing cold shower. Nice.

DON’T GET COMFORTABLE!
The actual tenants of your sublet are going to be back before you know it. Even if it’s not plain sailing, chances are you’ll fall in love with your nice big (compared to London or New York) apartment, and your new life in it. Just bear in mind, you’ll probably burn through another four of these before you finally settle down, so don’t get attached!

FdM Mauernpark (Photo by Dirk Mathesius)

On June 21st, Berliners will once again celebrate the longest day of the year and the official beginning of summer with a city-wide music festival, the Fete de la Musique. With performances on over 80 open-air stages, the street festival offers everything from reggae and jazz, to hip hop, electronic music and klezmer. Some of the city’s larger venues, like the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Volksbühne, will host events, as will nightclubs, beach bars, parks and smaller cafes. A day of music hopping at FdM is not only a great way to hear new music, it’s also an excellent way to explore the city…

When did the Berlin version of FdM begin and who started it?

It started  in 1995 when Simone Hofmann convinced the Senate Chancellery of Cultural Affairs to celebrate FdM in Berlin as a European Feast of Music.

What is the general “philosophy” of the event?

Fête de la Musique was founded in France in 1982 with the idea of showing in public how many people are able to sing or play an instrument. It is an invitation to experience live music in all of its diversity, to generously share music with others and in return to pay attention to the musicians and respect their effort. There are no restrictions in terms of style, genre, professional or amateur. All musicians perform without payment and admission is free.

How do bands or artists get to play or apply? Do they have to live in Berlin or come from Berlin?

They don’t necessarily have to live in or come from Berlin. Applications for Fête de la Musique are accepted all year round until the 8th of March. The music department of FdM then screens all applications and if requested gives recommendations to stage promoters setting up their program. Many of the stages have already a complete line-up, so for this reason many bands cannot be placed. We had more than 400 applications from musicians this year, among them 25 acts with or for children. More than 100 bands could be placed on stages this year and we assisted to more than 1/3 of the stages with advice for their program.

Which countries will be represented this year (2010)?

Musicians or bands from 21 countries – Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Senegal, Sweden, Turkey, US.

What have been the man highlights in recent editions of the festival?

The very popular German band Element of Crime played last year after 4 years of stage abstinence.

How many acts are playing this year (2010)?

About 600 acts, all together approximately 4.000 musicians

What makes Berlin a great city to host the FdM?

There’s incredible diversity, it’s multi-national and quite liberal. Berlin is also a green city, lots of parks and recreational areas suitable for street music and open air festivals.

The festival also caters for kids, right?

Via a press release in February we asked children to apply and we encourage also applications from schools and kindergardens. The idea is to let children experience music in a relaxed and playful atmosphere, not to enforce any kind of high performance. Hot spots for kids this year are (amongst others) the Joan Miró elementary school in Charlottenburg, Kuchenkaiser and Circus Cabuwazi in Kreuzberg, Fette Musik stage in Prenzlauer Berg and Antje Öklesund in Friedrichshain.

FdM Berlin Mitte (Photo by Kai Bienert)

There’s a big classical element also, can you elaborate?

This year we have some attractive classical acts by the Academy of Art who will be performing on two stages, plus a Bach organ concerto at Luisenkirche, a brass band performing at Humboldthain and more than 15 choruses, ranging from classical to folk.

Where can people find a program?

The program flyer is available throughout the city at various hot spots and also online at www.fetedelamusique.de

What advice would you give anyone attending?

Bring your friends – Don’t bring your car!

In what ways does FdM Berlin support music in the city?

All the musicians, singers, ensembles or bands that did not get a place in the stage program, are invited to a day of street music on the 21st of June from 4pm to 10pm. But this event is strictly acoustic. The Fête Company will take over the GEMA licensing for this day. The invitation is displayed on the website and is announced via press releases and social media. The permission form for acoustic music performance in public spaces can be downloaded from the website.

About The Author

Paul Sullivan is a Berlin-based writer & travel photographer and the founder of Slow Travel Berlin. You can check out his personal website here and some of his photography galleries here.

As anyone who has ever visited or lived in Berlin knows, it’s impossible not to stumble across the Second World War at some point. Its ghostly aura seeps through the city like an invisible fog, filling empty concrete bunkers, haunting memorials, cleaving to certain architecture. It’s especially apparent in the spaces where the places used to be.

While we tend to be well acquainted with the facts of the war (the dates, the death statistics, the names of those responsible), details remain hazy. Mostly because…well, because we weren’t there. Which is precisely why so many WWII eyewitness accounts are so compelling: their recording of war’s daily minutiae makes this dark and tragic episode in human history somehow more real.

A halftrack vehicle at the Lustgarten in Berlin, 1940 (Photo: German Federal Archive)

Certainly it makes Catherine Klein’s Escape From Berlin a potent read. Her tale begins on August 1^st 1939, “exactly 25 years after the outbreak of the great world war.” She’s at Berlin Zoo station, bidding an anxious adieu to her husband who is heading for England without her, since they could only raise enough funds (via friends abroad) for one ticket.

“Once in England he will be able to ask for me as his wife, on a domestic permit if need be, even without a guarantee… in six weeks’ time I’ll be here again, with my trunks packed, ready to set out on the road to freedom.”

She’s not, of course, and what follows is a gripping and frequently disturbing account of her life in war-battered Berlin as international hostilities intensify and the gruesome noose of Nazism tightens around her and the city.

Communications to the outside world are soon cut off and travel brutally restricted. Given the choice between a concentration camp and working for the Nazis, Klein reluctantly begins her new life as a factory employee. Her detailed day-to-day narration, written in diary form, reveals how she has to wake at 4.15am (without an alarm clock – they’re also verboten) and cross the city with her overalls, sandwiches, soap substitute and malt coffee (“real coffee is only to be had in the black market, at the risk of one’s life”) to arrive at the factory gates at 5.30am, “not half a minute later”.

Goebbels speaking to workers, Berlin, 1937 (Photo: German Federal Archive)

We hear about the government’s constant, cruel new laws. Non-Aryans are banned from reading newspapers, using telephones, even eating fruit (“half a pound of tomatoes is enough to send a non-Aryan into a concentration camp for life”).

Later, referring to the law decreeing all Jews must visibly wear the Judah star, she writes: “During the night before that fearful first morning I sew the sign onto my coat, as the law commands. I feel as if every stitch were burning a wound into my flesh.”

Klein attracts a guardian angel, an American journalist called Mr. Harriman, who pledges to facilitate her escape. He hunts down rare train tickets via his connections and offers her cash loans to purchase them. The bureaucratic hoops the pair have to jump through are formidable and life-threatening, and their mission oscillates violently between hope and frustration

The pressure grows so unbearable that Klein suffers “severe heart strain” and is moved to the countryside to convalesce. Finding the rural atmosphere a refreshing change from the fear and propaganda of Berlin, she’s nonetheless shocked that “in such a different part of Germany, the population accept everything quietly, without daring to utter an opinion, or criticism, against the regime. Where Hitler reigns, silence reigns.”

Back in Berlin, both the war and the book work towards a final climax. As Goebbels orchestrates the notorious Fabrikaktion in the city (the rounding up of the city’s remaining Jews in time for Hitler’s birthday) one final escape opportunity presents itself. Before attempting it, Klein takes a final look around the city.

“Berlin has changed her face again. What once used to be such a spotlessly clean city is now disfigured by heaps of dirty snow lying everywhere. Since I was last in this neighbourhood, many of the shops have been closed down completely; usually there is a little note at the door saying: ‘Closed for the Duration, owner called up’. While a few months ago there was still occasionally the chance of buying some little thing, now there is nothing to be had. The cinemas are sold out. The cafes have been deprived of their orchestras.”

Reichstag directly after the war (Photo: Bundesarchiv Koblenz)

Though it’s a true story, Escape From Berlin has all the tension and pacing of a fictive thriller. Klein herself was aware of this.

“If now and then the reader should stop and reflect: ‘No, this cannot be true, it reads like a detective story’, she notes in her brief introduction, “he will do well to remember that life as many of us have to live it these days, is stranger and more erratic than a mere writer’s brain would dare conceive…”

About The Author

Paul Sullivan is a Berlin-based writer & travel photographer and the founder of Slow Travel Berlin. You can check out his personal website here and some of his photography galleries here.

If you are interested in learning more about wartime Berlin and the history and plight of the Jews, you might want to visit these places.

Jewish Museum
Lindenstraße 9-14
10969 Berlin-Kreuzberg
Tel: +49 (0) 30 25 99 33 00
Map

Topography of Terror
Niederkirchnerstraße 8
10963 Berlin
Tel: +49 (0) 30 25 45 09 50
Map

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Cora-Berliner-Straße 1
10117 Berlin
Tel: +49 (0) 30 26 39 43 36
Map

Photo: Paul Sullivan

Kollwitzplatz is today one of Prenzlauer Berg’s best-known and (arguably) most attractive squares. Named after the famed artist Käthe Kollwitz, whose work reveals it to have once been home to the city’s impoverished and downtrodden, it was one of the first areas to be gentrified when the Wall fell in 1989.

You’d never guess at the area’s working class roots as you stroll around the leafy, cobbled streets today, admiring the refurbished Altbauten, watching families play in the trio of playgrounds that make up half the square (specifically built for kids of differing ages) and exploring the multitude of cafes, bars and boutiques that surround it.

Though Kollwitzplatz is always fairly vibrant, Saturdays is an especially popular day thanks to the extensive farmers market that takes over three of its four streets, offering everything from seasonal fruit and veg to flowers, deli food and home made arts and crafts.

The specific stalls are prone to change, but you can always find organic butchers, fish vendors, sweet sellers, clothes makers and a slew of reliable folk selling specialist items like Nudel & Co’s wide variety of fresh, hand-made pastas, Martin Franz’s  boutique chocolates and a variety of home-made oils, jams and other lecker delicacies from Germany and beyond.

Like all good food markets, this one will probably make you feel peckish before long. Luckily there’s lots to eat and drink auf der Hand, from good coffee and fresh juices to kebabs, falafels, fish Brötchen, waffles and Bratwurst. One particular highlight are the chirpy duo who serve up fresh wok-fried king prawns (from Asia) and oysters  or mussels (from France) with a glass of wine or prosecco. Don’t worry about missing it – the delicious smell will stop you in your tracks.

Photo: Paul Sullivan

Prices tend to vary. Farmers markets have a reputation for being expensive, but much of the fruit and veg here isn’t any pricier than in the supermarkets and it’s generally fresher and certainly more locally sourced. You’ll obviously pay for more for the chic treats – but that’s precisely why they’re treats.

You should be forewarned that the Saturday market is deservedly popular nowadays and can get almost uncomfortably busy in the summer months. One trick is to get there nice and early (it opens from 9am onwards) before the lunch & brunch crowd arrive. Another alternative is to visit the smaller and less well known organic market on Thursdays. It’s quieter and probably the best place to browse a superior range of olive oils, jams and honey etc.

If you do arrive on Saturday and find it already too bustling for your liking, you can also take a stroll north to Helmholtzplatz’s market, which is held on the Lychenerstr. side of the square. Here you can find good meat and fish vendors, cheese stalls, plenty of fruit and veg, flowers and more. It’s open from 9am-4pm or so, and nearby places that might interest you include the cafe Wohnzimmer and the welcoming kindercafe Kiezkind.

Kollwitzplatz Market

Thursdays: Noon – 7pm
Saturdays: 9am – 4pm

About The Author

Paul Sullivan is a Berlin-based writer & travel photographer and the founder of Slow Travel Berlin. You can check out his personal website here and some of his photography galleries here.