In my essay, "Green Squares on a Grey Map: Reflections on Survival and the Middle East," I explore the intricate concepts of survival, endurance, and transformation within an urban environment. I embark on a profoundly personal and metaphysical journey across the cemeteries of two prominent Berlin neighborhoods, Kreuzberg and Neukölln, to understand what truly endures in a shifting city. Initially equating the concept of survival with sheer stasis and unchanging permanence, my exploration ultimately leads me to the realization that survival manifests through adaptation, perseverance, and sometimes complete substitution. A foundational distinction is provided early in the text to clarify the spaces I am exploring: a "graveyard" is technically situated adjacent to a church, whereas a "cemetery" is a standalone burial ground, though I use the terms somewhat interchangeably for narrative flow throughout the piece.
My exploration was triggered by a fundamental question regarding what survives within sprawling cities, leading me to the immediate thought of cemeteries as immutable, ever-present fixtures. This realization is rooted in my personal experience of relocating to Berlin in October 2025. During a frantic, fast-paced search for housing across various districts—navigating places with names ending in "dorf," "feld," "see," "burg," and "berg"—I frequently consulted city maps. Upon these maps, I saw numerous green squares that I initially thought were public parks, but I soon realized they were graveyards. This visual realization sparked a profound observation: the dead are intricately surrounded by the living, represented conceptually as green squares enveloped by the grey squares of the living metropolis. Given that Berlin's population in 2025 was estimated by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany to be approximately 3.7 million people hailing from diverse religious, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, I naturally questioned how the city accommodates their final resting places and whether there is equitable space for everyone.
Armed with questions about space, purpose, and inclusivity, I discovered that many of Berlin's cemeteries have fundamentally lost their original functions and acquired entirely new, contemporary, and community-driven purposes. My essay details how decreasing burial rates and other urban factors have left many of these spaces largely empty and overgrown with vegetation, prompting profound urban adaptations. For example, I found that some former burial grounds now function as public parks where residents walk dogs or bring children to play in the snow, such as the Kirchhof Jerusalem und Neue Kirche near Hallesches Tor. Others, like the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery, host organized walking tours.
More radical transformations involve spaces like the Kiezkapelle, an old chapel that lost its original religious function and now serves as a recreational space for workshops, concerts, lectures, exhibitions, and film screenings. The Neuer Friedhof St. Jacobi on Hermannstraße in Neukölln serves as a prime example of this evolution; managed by The Protestant Cemetery Association Berlin City Centre, its open areas host community activities. Meanwhile, the adjacent chapel is overseen by The Prinzessinnengarten Collective, which facilitates community gardening, educational workshops, vegetable preserving, beekeeping, and diverse social events, including a queer poetry night I attended on Trans Remembrance Day.
Expanding the scope of my research online, I uncovered a rich tapestry of history and biodiversity, including a multi-taxon survey of the Weißensee Jewish Cemetery that revealed incredible biological richness, and the complex, dark history of the Invalidenfriedhof concerning the Nazis. However, recognizing the vastness of Berlin, I decided to limit my physical exploration to Kreuzberg and Neukölln. Drawing from my academic background in Middle East studies—a term I acknowledge is heavily debated—I focused on the traces of this region within Berlin's resting places. A spontaneous detour off a bus on Columbiadamm led me to the Suni Şehitlik Mosque, completed in 2005, and the adjacent Turkish Cemetery Berlin (Türkischer Friedhof Berlin). I detail the history of this cemetery, tracing its origins back to 1866 as a burial ground for envoys, its later use for Turkish soldiers after the First World War, and its eventual filling to capacity in 1945, which prompted authorities to provide additional Muslim burial sites at the Gatow cemetery. Nearby, the Columbiadamm Cemetery houses graves deeply connected to Prussian and German military history, yet I was struck by the presence of Muslim graves, with headstones indicating origins from Lebanon, Iran, and Turkey. I also briefly note a prisoner of war cemetery in Zehlendorf containing over 400 Muslim graves linked to Germany's colonial past and World War I.
Confronting the heavy reality of mortality through these physical spaces proved mentally taxing, forcing me to pivot my focus from human grief back to the core concept of survival. Moving away from a purely human-centric view, I applied the ancient philosophical paradox of "The Ship of Theseus"—recorded by Plutarch and expanded by Thomas Hobbes—to the life cycle of cemeteries. This paradox questions whether an object remains the same if all its parts are gradually replaced, serving as a metaphorical tool to explore identity and change. I question what truly defines a cemetery: the statues, the gravestones, or the human remains?. If a cemetery shifts its function to become a community garden, or if all original headstones are replaced and human remains fade away over centuries, does it still "survive" as the same entity?. I posit that these spaces survive not through stasis, but through functional evolution.
Beyond functional survival, I discovered a vibrant, biological layer of life within these seemingly dead spaces. Drawing heavily from Zoë Schlanger's 2024 book, The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, I illustrate how cemeteries are actually thriving ecosystems. Schlanger's research reveals that the abundant flora in graveyards—including trees, shrubs, moss, lichens, and vast subterranean mycelium networks—have the capacity to communicate, make decisions, and remember. Furthermore, these interconnected networks actively draw sustenance from the decaying human remains beneath the soil. This revelation radically shifted my perspective, replacing my view of cemeteries as sombre spaces with a newfound reverence for them as dynamic ecosystems where survival is an ongoing evolutionary reality.
In the final section, I reflect on the unpredictable nature of journeys, whether they pertain to a human life, the shifting purpose of an urban space, or the writing of the essay itself. What began as a straightforward academic exercise evolved into a profound path of self-discovery, highlighting stark cultural differences, such as the rigid dogmatism of the Eastern Orthodox Church in my native Georgia compared to Berlin's adaptable spaces. By confronting the reality of death, I navigated my own relationship with mortality, deciding that my own future burial place matters very little to me personally. I conclude my essay by imploring the reader to visit a cemetery with open awareness to foster their own self-reflection. Finally, I share a personal wish: instead of indicating an age, my future headstone should feature an uplifting quote from Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22: "Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.".