In the autumn of 2015, Germany opened its borders to over one million refugees — predominantly Syrians fleeing civil war, Afghans fleeing the Taliban's resurgence, and Iraqis displaced by the chaos following years of conflict. Berlin, as the capital, received a significant share. The official reception system — registration centres, temporary accommodation, language courses organised by the integration authority — was overwhelmed within weeks. Refugees arrived faster than the bureaucracy could process them, and the gaps between official services were enormous.
The arrivals
The Şehitlik Mosque in Neukölln — Berlin's largest mosque and a cornerstone of the city's Turkish-German community since the 1980s — watched the arrivals with a mixture of compassion and urgency. The mosque's community knew something about displacement: many of its founding families had come to Germany as Gastarbeiter in the 1960s and 70s, arriving in a country whose language they did not speak and whose customs were alien. They also knew something about Islamic obligation. 'The Quran tells us to be generous to the wayfarer, the one who is far from home,' the mosque's imam explained in a Friday khutbah in October 2015. 'These people are as far from home as any human beings can be.'
What the hub offers
Within three months of that khutbah, the Şehitlik Mosque had converted its underused basement and community hall into what it called the Willkommenszentrum — the Welcome Centre. The centre began with German language classes and legal advice sessions. Within a year, it had expanded into a comprehensive integration hub offering: German at six levels (beginner through advanced), job placement services in partnership with local employers, vocational training in catering, cleaning, and care work, mental health support from volunteer Muslim psychologists, a women-only programme with childcare, and a cultural orientation course co-designed with German volunteers that addressed both German civic culture and the mosque's own Islamic framework.
What distinguished the Şehitlik centre from government integration programmes was not resources — the mosque operated on a fraction of the public budget — but relationship. Refugees who came to the mosque were not processed; they were welcomed. The German-Turkish volunteers who staffed the centre understood displacement in their own family histories. Many spoke Arabic alongside Turkish and German, eliminating the language barrier that made government offices so impenetrable. And the mosque context meant that Muslim refugees — who often felt culturally dislocated in secular German institutions — felt immediately at home.
Finding work, building belonging
The centre's employment programme has placed over 1,200 refugees in formal employment since 2016. It operates through a network of employer partnerships — local businesses, restaurants, care homes, cleaning companies, and increasingly, larger firms that have made diversity commitments — and a mentorship scheme that pairs each job-seeker with a volunteer who has navigated the German employment system and can advise on everything from CV writing to workplace culture to how to handle a job interview in German.
The guest has rights over the host for three days, and thereafter what is given is a gift of charity.
Belonging
Yasmin arrived from Damascus in October 2015 with her two children and no German. She found the Şehitlik centre in her second week in Berlin. She completed the language programme, found work as a dental assistant, and six years later was appointed as a volunteer coordinator for the centre's women's programme. Her children, now teenagers, attend the local Gymnasium and speak German with Berlin accents. She is not, she says, German yet — citizenship takes time — but she is part of Berlin. The mosque made that possible. 'It did not just teach me German,' she says. 'It taught me that I belonged somewhere while I was becoming someone new.'