[ Ball bouncing ]
-Sports.
A universal language.
Wherever players come from,
they can communicate through the give and go,
the teamwork, the triumph and loss.
Fun requires no translation.
For decades, the city of Frankfurt an der Oder
didn't need a game that could help bridge cultural gaps.
The Eastern German city was largely homogenous,
unlike Berlin
and the better known Frankfurt in the west of Germany.
Generally speaking,
the people here look the same and ate the same foods.
Then, in 2014,
Chancellor Angela Merkel called for welcoming refugees,
and over 1,000 refugees came to Frankfurt Oder,
changing the areas makeup,
and a community center near the border with Poland
became a hub for Germans to interact harmoniously
with people from all over the world.
Sports is just one of many activities.
-Ah!
-Michael Kurzwelly,
the artist who made Bruckenplatz,
which means "bridge place,"
sees it as a space to create a new society
dedicated to collective fun and mutual acceptance.
-My idea was to create a kind of laboratory
to redefine space
and to really find society common life
as a new kind of sculpture, kind of social sculpture,
which we develop together.
-Kurzwelly believes people invent national identities,
and therefore, have the power to change those constructs.
-For me, there came lots of richness into this town,
but I cannot tell you in percentages
how many people like the refugees being here
and how many people dislike it.
My idea is not to fight against those who dislike it,
but to show that it is such a richness.
-Majeed Behzad was a translator for Germany in Afghanistan
before he sought asylum.
He says when the German government
first brought him here,
he faced racist insults and attacks.
He says he saw Frankfurt an der Oder
as "dead city."
-There was not much people, and so I had also no contact,
and I was totally alone when I came here.
But then, day by day, I started going out
and making some friends.
I talked to some organizations.
And the best thing which helped me a lot
to come out of it
and to not feel alone --
I established one organization.
-Through his organization,
he helped other refugees get established here.
Behzad brings members of his association
to Bruckenplatz to sip tea and meet.
-It's a very open place for everyone,
and everyone is welcome always here.
They don't have to be registered in official organization.
Everyone has a key can come here,
celebrate or organize their events,
and, of course, it's a very important
to put everything in the right place,
where it was, after the event.
-Native Frankfurter Heidi Pach
first was uncomfortable when she came to Bruckenplatz.
-When I came the first Friday, I came into the cafe
and a bunch of Syrian men were sitting there.
Foreigners. I thought, "Oh, what am I in for now?"
-She was there to do community service,
but she was weary of refugees initially.
-I was positively surprised.
-I was greeted in a very friendly manner, offered a seat,
and they talked with me,
because they also wanted to learn German.
-Frankfurt's mayor René Wilke
sees meeting places like Bruckenplatz
as one of the city's biggest assets.
-In other cities, people are split up individually,
every person for themselves.
separated into parallel structures,
and that makes living harmoniously difficult.
It leads to antagonism.
-He hopes refugees will bring life back
to what Behzad once saw as a dead city.
-Everyone is different.
and we humans can live well with one another
when we think that differences is exciting and interesting
and when we look at what can potentially enrich us
and how we can accept and respect
the boundaries of others.