In an Istanbul market, I came across an old German phrase book – and a reminder of how not to speak to migrants | Carolin Würfel

2026-03-28 - 05:10

Turkish immigrants to Germany in the 60s were seen as temporary labour, not people. Today’s government in Berlin is at risk of repeating the mistake A few weekends ago, I went to the flea market in Bomonti, a neighbourhood on the European side of Istanbul. I go there regularly, and over the years I’ve accumulated a small collection of things: embroidered napkins, records, old issues of House & Garden, earrings, candle holders. It is usually on the days when you are not looking for anything in particular that you find the most interesting things – or, as the Turkish writer Sabahattin Ali once wrote, “some things we never know we need until we find them”. That particular Sunday, strolling through the stalls, I came across a book from 1965 titled Türkler için Almanca – Deutsch für Türken (German for Turks). It was among the first language textbooks of its kind, widely distributed to the so-called Gastarbeiter – “guest workers” – who came to West Germany in the 1960s and 70s. The economic boom of the 1950s had created an acute labour shortage, prompting the recruitment of workers from abroad. A bilateral agreement with Turkey, signed in 1961, facilitated the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Turkish men and women to come and work in German factories. Officially, their stay was meant to be temporary. Workers came alone; families stayed behind. A copy of the language book I found 60 years later at a flea market in Istanbul would have been in the suitcases of many of these workers. Carolin Würfel is a writer, screenwriter and journalist who lives in Berlin and Istanbul. She is the author of Three Women Dreamed of Socialism Continue reading...