Around 25,000 boys and girls once lived in the Berlin children's home in Königsheide. Some are still looking for their parents today.
Behind the gate with the squirrel emblem, an almost unreal idyll opens up - it's hard to believe that the Schöneweide S-Bahn station is only around 600 meters away: Neoclassical buildings stand in a sparse forest of tall oaks and pine trees. They are reminiscent of the Zenner house in Treptower Park. Here and there there are hammocks stretched between the trees.
All buildings are decorated with blue, red and beige scratch paintings, showing happy children in all walks of life. The houses are on the right and left on a street lined with flower beds. It leads from the entrance gate with the squirrel to an imposing house with figures standing in front of the column-decorated portal. It looks a bit like a miniature of the Weimar National Theater.
This afternoon, a group of two dozen people strolled through the listed complex on Südostallee in Johannisthal, a district of Treptow . Some carry folding stools in their hands; the tour will last two hours, at least.
Balconies were added to the houses a few years ago. The residents of the ground floors were given terraces. There is a sign attached to one: “You should be a caterpillar: eat – sleep. Eat – sleep. Eat – sleep. Zack – nice.” The current residents of the complex want life to be so easy here. But it's not a carefree place.
Today a residential park, formerly the GDR's model children's home