By Margrit Pittman

OR BERLIN, GDR
,. {very day we look in our mailboxes
meee if the notice is there,”’ Marianne
ritz says. The Tenants of Klarastrasse
0 are waiting for notification from
the city that they must move to make
Way for modernization work. But these
are not dispossess orders. Despite tre-
Pidations about the upheavals, the ten-

ants are looking forward to the letters _

that will tell them to move. In fact, they
ave been active in bringing about this
Moving day.
“We say that we’ll be together again
_ Next Christmas,” Ms. Fritz says, “those
_ Who want to move back and that’s most
: us.” She is a widowed office worker in
ler fifties who is the tenants’ chairper-
Son. She has lived in this dingy tenement
Or 25 years. “It was already an old
Ouse when we moved in. It was built
. ‘one the turn of the century, I thinkin

“When we moved in there wasn’t
€ven light in the staircase or the base-
Ment,” she says. ‘‘My husband, who be-
_ Came tenants’ representative when the
_ City had to take over the house, had to
See to it that it was installed.”

The house had been typical for work-
€rs’ dwellings at the turn of the century
In Berlin. There were no bathrooms and
pmolet between every two floors to
jae care’ of six apartments. In the

Ouse facing the street were two-room
centres apartments,. with the ex-
hea ni of two apartments the owner

uilt for himself and His family.

= OSe were larger and had baths. Then,
Hho typical for Berlin tenements,
tea ee a second house in baek, sepa-
| yara thet fue. first by a dingy court-
apariments, ad one-room and kitchen
We i the war the owner moved to
St Berlin and stopped paying the

| Mortgage. In due time the city took over —

ane €stablished tenants’ — self-
: histration. “At the time we were
fn ee Communists in the house and
a Usband volunteered to serve as
ants representative. This was in
Soa was hard to get tenants in-
to in in any activity, buthe managed
Sone few and in‘time others
5 Seta that. it was in their own in-
ee : After her husband died, the
‘ Bonne = to take his plas on
ee. It i -
ary job. is an unpaid, volun
in : ss improvements were made dur-
Ser Ose years. Some new tile stoves
are pipes repaired, lights in the
a foe put in, “But it was only the
Shin necessary and piecemeal re-
aie Ms. Fritz says. ‘“You may have
Rice that the staircase hasn’t been
Se in decades, possibly not since
. Ouse was built: They put a new roof
ne ast year and also the tenants’ rep-
oe has the right to authorize re-
i S costing up to 200 marks ($100.)
stall or example, I was not able to in-
it a modern water heater in the
Chen because the pipes were too old.”
ut half of the families were able to
at In a toilet and bathroom, others just
oilet"because there was no room. .
alr Several houses on -the- block have
€ady been ‘imodernized and we also

put in-a bid. There were many delays -

and we-were told that other houses are
in worse condition than ours. But this
year our turn finally came.”

Ms. Frtiz produced a thick folder
with applications and blueprints. “‘This
is our copy of the project,” she says,
producing a blueprint. ‘In the back-
house everything will be altered to
make two-room,, kitchen and bath
apartments. The front-house apart-
ments will remain essentially the same.
A few walls-will be moved to install a
toilet and bath, or at-least a shower, in
each apartment: All pipes and electric
wiring will-be replaced, modern kitchen
stoves and sinks installed and modern
water heaters.” :At- present -Ms. Fritz
has a coal-burning: water heater in her-
bathroom, none in the kitchen. _

Preparations for the project started
in mid-1977 when a meeting of all ten-
ants. was held. with ‘representatives of

the construction company and of the —

local council’s housing commission.
The tenants were given a choice of

who wish to return would be given an
interim apartment until. work is com-
pleted. In either case, the city would pay
the. moving expenses. . ake
- That meeting was followed-up by
discussions with-the individual tenants.
The majority, Ms: Fritz says, wanted to
return: ‘‘Most of us have lived here for
many years. We are used to the
neighborhood. Shopping facilities are
very good and there is a small wooded
area nearby. For me an important
reason to return is that I work nearby. I
wouldn’t want to have a trek to work.”
Tenants who want to return will be

pay; in accordance with the law.

“T eame to what I considered the 64-

dollar question. What will it all cost?

Ms. Fritz looked.at me. ‘People from:
the West always. want to. know what .

everything costs. I have a nephew in
West Germany who visits.sometimes

and always asks that: My rent is, and”

has been since we. moved here, 34.66
marks (about $17) a month. The four-
room apartment is 63 marks. That won’t
change. There may be a small added fee
for the water heater but it won’t amount
to much. It costs me about 36 marks
every three months for gas and elec-
tricity. The interim apartment? I really
don’t know what they’ll cost. You know
that no one asked that question. They all
know thatit’ll be about the same as their
rent here, 50 pfennig more or less. But
that isn’t something we are worried ab-
out. The main thing is to get it done and,
as I said, we hope to be back next

Christmas.”

g

‘In the 1973-80 period 5,300 tenements (20,000 apartments) will be renovated in one of Berlin's
districts. Below, a bullding crew on a reconstruction site is visited by deputies of the city district
council and members of the commission on housing.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 11, 1978—Page 5