Dong Xuan Center

The Dong Xuan Center is a huge trading center for goods and services of all kinds deep in East Berlin. The property is zoned commercial, which means that only wholesale business can be operated here and, in exceptional cases, services. But hardly anyone abides by this. Those who end up at the Dong Xuan Center are mostly people who have migrated from central Vietnam as well as from China, India, and Pakistan to escape poverty. In many cases they are unqualified and have no knowledge of German, and some of them don’t have a work or residence permit either. As a result, the 88,900 m2 facility in Berlin-Lichtenberg has seen a shadow economy with lighter and darker gray areas establish itself, although many people have managed to make the step up from illegality into regular employment.
Marietta Schwarz, journalist