On a wet and cold evening sitting in a West Polish family in their bright, East German living room. In the Radio-a Polish station running and on the flat screen, a flashy video game. In the driveway in front of the door three cars with Polish license plates Parking in a row. In the kennel of dogs barking, pale lantern light, the cobblestones in Menkin, has a very old Church and 167 inhabitants illuminated.
in 2011 the couple moved Gatkiewicz with the two children in this Brandenburg location, in a white house with two floors, lawn, and fence. They came from Szczecin. Only 30 kilometers away, but a different world. Szczecin is a Polish city with 40’000 inhabitants, there is a major port, the castle of the Pomeranian Dukes, Jacob’s Cathedral and Local, such as, for example, the Buddha Thai & Fusion. Nevertheless, the Gatkiewiczs wanted in the German province. Monika Gatkiewicz, 38, blond hair, black Sweater, sitting at the long dining table, she says: “We have everything. House, Holiday, Hobby. And Szczecin is very close.”
actually, you have to leave Szczecin. “We sleep here, how many people, in front of a big city,” says Grzegorz Gatkiewicz, 41 years old, of medium size, a rather silent man, he still struggles with the German words. Prior to moving to this border area, knew the two, they went rather to Berlin. Then Poland in 2004 joined the Union in 2007, the borders were opened, because this idea was. Now the Gatkiewiczs are like many of their compatriots the frontier, you’ll be in Germany and live in Poland. Take advantage of the boundless Europe. And revive German cities and places from which life in the past few years, more and more disappeared. The advantage is, there is cheap real estate, the German child benefit, the German Pension, German schools and the Polish metropolis, in the Gatkiewiczs born and grew up, is very close.
real estate on the cheap
Nowhere in the 460-Kilometer-long border are German villages and a Polish big city are so close as here. 1800 Polish immigrants have settled in the district of Löcknitz, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, it is a 12’070. Menkin is located only six kilometres from Löcknitz station. The poles, replace them, or the deceased German.
The Gatkiewiczs an apartment, 55 square meters in Szczecin. In Menkin, you have road a whole house with garden, 1200 square meters in a small residence, surrounded by Fields and forest, it smells of the country. For 70’000 Euro you have bought the house. The house of Menkin was empty, Grzegorz Gatkiewicz has it renovated. In the shelves and display cases of photos and trophies, trophies from adventures in Germany. The nine-year-old son Oliwier drives successful Motocross. He attended a German school and speaks German better than Polish, his best friend is a German. His sister Olivia is next door in Löcknitz on the German-Polish grammar school, a European school. She feels as a pole, and has mastered both languages perfectly, you translated or corrected, even now, if your parents have a word missing. As Menkin? “Too quiet,” she says. She is 15 years old, your nails are painted, she loves to Szczecin.
more than half an hour, the journey takes over to Szczecin are rarely, three times, then turn on the Avenue to Löcknitz, where the Gatkiewiczs in a Pension is invested, to the right again, then straight through a village, through fields and forest. “A truck driver, take into consideration local residents”, in signs, in English and Polish. Posters advertise for a shopping Mall in Szczecin, “24 cafes and Restaurants, 140 shops, 1000 Parking spaces”.
“capital of the German-Polish co-operation”
back Home in Szczecin, there is everything that is going on the Gatkiewiczs here. Olivia dances, rides, and swims there, brother Oliwier power of Breakdance. Father Grzegorz earned his Zlotys and Euros in Poland as the managing Director of a new company, the furnished houses and kitchens of the Lord. You have in Szczecin friends and relatives, Grzegorz’s brother, and Known to be superior now, in the area around Löcknitz to relocate.
“For us, this is the rescue”, says Detlef Ebert (CDU), the mayor of Löcknitz. “We are ne become thriving landscape. Elsewhere, the houses will be forfeited.” This is only a slight exaggeration, if you look at the rather gray road trains. “Euro-Bistro” is about a pub in the village, “To the frontier” was the name of the Pizzeria. Many of the settlements in Western Pomerania or Brandenburg Löcknitz are not, after sunset, pitch black,.
“I’ll give you a few Numbers,” says Detlef Ebert. “3218 inhabitants, 1000 students, four schools, two kindergartens, three supermarkets, seven days a week.” All of this, and the summer full pool, there would be in Löcknitz without EU without Poland, without Szczecin. In and around Löcknitz by Polish Doctors, the Polish teacher, Polish plumber’s work. The Catholic Church was mainly reactivated for residents of Poland. If he was pissed that so many poles umzögen, he asked the head of the government of West Pomerania. On the contrary, I replied: “you are the secret capital of German-Polish cooperation.”
shift to the right strokes and
In Warsaw over there, then marched to the 100. State the anniversary of right-wing radicals through the streets. Poland’s government is attacking media and the judiciary. The PIS party and their leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski were “a parody, a head problem,” says Grzegorz Gatkiewicz. “Small men,” says his wife. You will not find the shift to the right both bad, they escaped before the Polish policy. They also have no fear of the Right on this side of the border. At the state election in 2016, the AfD won the constituency in the Löcknitzer Council two NPD men are sitting. Neo-Nazis shouted at a meeting with refugees and Poland: “No people of German, all parasites, the Polish mob.” You can read the scene, even in the protection of the Constitution report. “Fuck the Nazis” is not painted in Löcknitz someone on a wall in a House, but mayor Ebert says: “all the conflicts are gone, but the friendships will make itself felt.”
Often the misunderstandings with the language, to the cashier in the supermarket, for example. Or on the Offices, where Monika Gatkiewicz rummaged through German applications. The a welcome the new residents, such as, for example, the mayor. Other offers, rather, you scold. Germany will be exploited. It is true that Poland have now abandoned houses to buy and renovate, the German. “Only the poles of the coal,” is the title of a documentary about the Polish buyer in the room Löcknitz.
half The class is from Poland
Monika Gatkiewicz thinks that many Germans are sitting here prefer to stay at home to explore Szczecin, “the fear of the big city”. Some Löcknitzer can only make it to the Polish gas station or to the “Polish market”. And some people in Szczecin, Germany is suspect. In Poland, petrol, cigarettes, or Grave decorations are cheaper. “Poland has better sausage, better Mayo, Cola and Fanta,” says Monika Gatkiewicz. She likes Fast Food, a McDonald’s in Poland at the border. Pizza can be online at the Polish border village of Dobra ordered.
daughter Olivia wants to go back to the OJ in any case to Poland. Class – a small Triumph rides in Krakow and Gdansk, you helped German classmates, whose Polish will not be filed. Poland, she speaks much of Poland, perhaps because their parents speak much of Germany. In Löcknitz your half of the class is Polish, a model school in the EU, with democracy-AG, and actions against racism.
A German-Polish Generation
hard to imagine, if this limit one day, would be closed again. Krzysztof Pyrka is at the end of sixty, psychologist and Translator, a slim, thoughtful man. He escaped decades ago from the people’s Republic of Poland to West Germany and approached the last of the EU-Republic of Poland. He lives in Pasewalk, 16 kilometers from Löcknitz station. Pyrka like the German rules. “Dialogue” means to be the interpreters office, nice Name, he translated for the police, courts, ministries. Now a German-Polish-Generation, emerging as Krzysztof Pyrka says.” Such as “dog barking” he had a German earlier, he says, but now he loves English as well as Polish. “The language that for me is Paradise. Both languages are alive.”
On the table, a Polish political magazine, and he currently reads more depressing news. Europe is crumbling, while they are coming here closer and closer? Krzysztof Pyrka feared it, but he says: “I have a dream. That Germany and Poland will one day become a European state. A utopia, Yes. I have two identities, why should not also the other?”
And in Menkin Olivia Gatkiewicz is waiting for you in February, at last 16 years old, and with her uncle in the Disco of Szczecin.
(editing Tamedia)
Created: 20.02.2019, 20:04 PM
