Expats bring a touch of the Levant to Berlin
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Christina Foerch The Daily Star 25 January 2003
The Bergmann Street in West Berlin is known for its multicultural atmosphere.
People from all corners of the world either live nearby or come to shop and to spend time.
There is an American coffee shop offering carrot cake, bagels and poppy seed muffins. There is a Thai restaurant serving healthy, exotic specialties from the Far East, accompanied by the smiles of its cooks and trendy techno music.
In the Greek restaurant next door, the barkeeper prefers to play Zorba and to serve ouzo. It is even possible to cook international specialties yourself, since Knofi, a shop which is named after the German abbreviation for garlic, offers spices, exotic vegetables and more for recipes beyond the German standard of sausages and sauerkraut.
And if international cuisine is not enough for a truly multicultural lifestyle, there are shops with exotic items from India, Egypt and Turkey, offering colorful quilts and textiles, Arab lamps and Turkish ceramics. There are no limits for one’s imagination and creativity to decorate a home and give it an ethnic look.
Yet long before a multicultural lifestyle became a trend among Berlin’s alternative scene, Lebanese and Palestinian businessmen had been active in the city.
Most of them have been living in the area ever since they arrived in Germany as much as 25 years ago, and as trading seems to be in most Arab nationals’ blood, they opened shops nearby their homes.
Abou Dabou, for example, started his business a quarter of a century ago by collecting articles from homes, selling them at one of the city’s flea markets. This business didn’t require any costly investment just an advert in the newspaper, saying that he’d take old furniture, porcelain, LPs, books and all the unwanted stuff people usually want to get rid of when they move house. Abou Dabou rented a basement in Bergmann Street, which wasn’t a big investment, either, because at that time, rents were cheap.
It turned out to be an excellent business, and other foreigners with little money German students, artists and musicians, the typical inhabitants of Bergmann Street became good clients, first at his flea market stands and later in his basement shop in Bergmann Street.
Abou Dabou rented more space and opened more shops in the street. Other Palestinians and Lebanese became competitors of Abou Dabou, and also opened shops for trash and second-hand articles. At a certain time, Bergmann Street counted six stores of this kind.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the area around Bergmann Street became a bit fancier. In the course of these changes, some of the second-hand shops had to close down, but Abou Dabou survived, because he started to specialize in antiques.
Today his son, Ahmad, 21, continues with the business. “At first, I didn’t find this work very interesting,” he admits. But the more he got involved, the more he learned, and the more he liked it. “I just went along with my father, and watched him. I also read a few books on antiques and art, that was it.”
Having worked for a couple of years in this business, one can become an expert, he thinks.
“You always learn something new, meet new people and learn a lot about art and artists. We have several stores, and each one is specialized in certain products.”
One of them features old LPs, CDs and books. Another, antique carpets, furs and porcelain. And the one he likes the best, antique furniture, paintings and old-fashioned picture frames.
“Art and antique furniture brings the money,” he says. Recently, Abou Chaker sold an oil painting for some 5,000 euros. “An expensive painting doesn’t stay in the shop for
a long time.”
The clients are either private persons, and once they fall in love with a painting, Abou Chaker can get a good price. But most of the clients are dealers also Arabs, or “the family” as the shop owner puts it. And dealers pay less than private clients, but they also buy more.
“Some of the dealers started with us, working as carriers,” Abou Chaker said. “And now they buy from us.”
His father still drives all over Germany, collecting antiques from private homes. The family keeps the favorite pieces for themselves, “but once we don’t like them anymore, we put just them in the shop.”
The dealers then buy the items and sell them elsewhere sometimes even to Lebanon, where antiques are sold in various shops and markets.
At the end of the day, a young lady who lives in the area drops by. “I have an old sofa from the 1970s, do you want to buy it?” she asks. But no luck. As long as it is not a designer piece, Abou Chaker can’t accept it. “No market for it at the moment,” he says.
At 6pm, Abou Chaker closes his store and goes around the corner to Al Arz a small takeaway shop where he usually gets a falafel sandwich. Al Arz has been there for over a decade, offering Lebanese specialties such as shawarma, grilled liver and shish taouk.
“We were one of the first Lebanese fast-food restaurants in Berlin,” says the son of the owner, Fadi Awada.
In the beginning, business wasn’t easy, because the Germans didn’t know anything about Lebanese food. Naturally, most of the clients were Arabs, ranging from asylum seekers to architects. But little by little, also the Germans started to come, and now the clientele is as multicultural as any area of Bergmann Street.
They know that in Al Arz, they get good-quality food. Awada’s father travels to Lebanon
a couple of times per year to bring original spices and ingredients. All of the employees are family members because, according to Awada, “You can be sure that they work well and don’t cheat.”
Tradition, location as well as the good quality are the keys to the Awadas’ longevity. Today, one can’t count the number of falafel restaurant chains in Berlin, which bear names such as Habibi or Raouche.
It’s the same for Abou Chaker and for Awada their fathers had been the first ones to open up a business, and have succeeded in keeping faithful clients. For sure, they also played an important role in turning the area around Bergmann Street into a place of multicultural living, which has attracted locals as well as tourists until today. And this, in turn, is good for business be it antiques or sandwiches.
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