Turks Retiring in Germany

Called Türk Huzur Evi, Turkish House of Well-Being, the private institution in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg will serve Turks who initially came to Germany to work and ended up making the country their home, organizers said Wednesday.

Of the 2.4 million Turks or Germans of Turkish origin living in Germany, some 350,000 have now reached retirement age, according to official estimates.

"We want to give them a little bit of home," the secretary-general of the Turkish Community in Berlin, Celal Altun, said at a news conference.

Celal's organization and a private hospital group, Marseille, joined forces to launch the home, where the first residents will move in Monday.

Catering to cultural needs

Employing 75 staff fluent in Turkish and German, the institution is eventually expected to offer all the comforts of Turkish life to 155 residents in Germany.

The new building emblazoned with a crescent moon has a prayer room and an imam who will visit the home regularly and is decorated with pictures of Turkish landmarks and outfitted with bilingual menus and door signs.

The breakfasts will include olives and goat's cheese while all the meat served is halal, or permitted under Islam. Pork and alcohol are strictly taboo.

Men will receive baths and help in the toilets from male personnel while the women will be cared for by female staff.

Guest workers who chose to stay

Altun said more Turkish pensioners are remaining in Germany as most of their children and grandchildren live here.

"It has not even occurred to many of them to return to their home country," he said.

At the same time, many families living in a hectic western European culture do not always find the time to care for their elders, breaking with a long-standing Turkish tradition.

Although there are sufficient German facilities available, many older Turks feel more comfortable being in the majority, with care tailored to their needs.

"Many men did hard physical work all their lives, don't speak German well and would thus have a difficult time explaining their health problems," Altun said.

Less expensive than other homes

Marseille chairman Axel Hölzer said the cost of the facility would be below average for a private institution due to smaller average household incomes among Turks in Germany.

"Many Turks have modest financial means," he said. "Residents have to pay between 1,100 euros and 1,500 euros ($1,451 and $1,979) per month for their stay."

The company has set its sights on a growing potential market. By the year 2020, the number of Turks between 65 to 75 years old in Kreuzberg is expected to double while the number of Turks over the age of 75 is to quadruple, according to Berlin health authorities.

Hölzer said that if Türk Huzur Evi becomes a success in Berlin, the company would consider opening similar homes in other German cities.

No fear of separate community for elderly

Bara John, who spent more than 20 years managing integration efforts for the city of Berlin, said she welcomed the idea of a specialized facility for Turks and rejected the notion it perpetuated "ghettoization."

"People must be able to choose where they want to spend their advanced years, particularly when they become helpless," she said. "In a multicultural society, diversity has to be allowed to express itself."

Germany launched a "guest workers" program in the 1960s to fill a shortage of blue-collar labor.

Although the arrangement was considered temporary, many of the newcomers brought wives from home, started families and stayed on, prompting Germany in recent years to liberalize its citizenship laws.