It was a trip for Black children from Berlin and their families, offering them an exclusive afternoon at an outdoor pool set up by a local theater.
But the plans, scheduled for earlier this month, had to be canceled after right-wing and conservative sectors exploited them to stir up outrage, forcing the organizers to defend themselves against racist emails and threats, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.
The Volksbühne, a theater in the city center, received 300,000 euros of public money to open a “popular pool,” which initially promised to be “open to all those seeking to cool off during the increasingly hot Berlin summers.”
The theater announced an event scheduled for August 14 in which the pool would be open “exclusively to Black communities” for six hours, as part of a collaboration with Each One Teach One (EOTO), a community organization dedicated to education and empowerment, as well as a learning center for people of African descent.
The Volksbühne stated that it had extended the invitation hoping to break down some of the barriers that would normally keep these children away from the pool. While other groups had been similarly invited to use the pool exclusively without incident, the idea of Black children enjoying a private afternoon at a public pool proved controversial for some.
Thus, the event was canceled after receiving political criticism and leading the organizers to cite security issues due to threats and hostile reactions online.
The EOTO group posted a statement on its website about the event cancellation: “Since the public debate about the event began, we have received emails with racist threats, threats of violence, and discriminatory comments on social media. Therefore, we cannot rule out the possibility that children and teenagers would have been exposed to other dangers that day.”
Previously, the event had provoked condemnation from some political sectors. “Apartheid as a model for Germany?” said Alice Weidel, leader of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), sharing a photo of the pool schedule before it was torn down.
“In the tax-funded artistic project ‘Volksbad,’ white people are temporarily denied access. What is this supposed to mean? Public funds intended for this type of event should be cut immediately!” she added.
Even more moderate politicians said the supposed anti-discrimination event ridiculed the name of the pool, which translates as “the people’s bath.”
“Berlin is a livable, diverse, colorful, and free city. So why do we need safe spaces?” said Aileen Weibeler, a local politician from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), on social media.
“Personally, I do not believe in categorizing by skin color,” said Stefan Evers, CDU politician and the party’s main candidate in the Berlin state elections. “I understood the ‘people’s pool’ as a pool for everyone,” he told the newspaper Bild.
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The measure was also rejected by Christoph Meyer, candidate of the center-right Free Democratic Party, who said: “Public spaces should unite society, not segregate people based on their skin color.”
Steffen Krach, candidate of the Social Democratic Party, added: “The decision made by the event organizers can be debated, but not at the expense of people of color.”
Elif Eralp, candidate of the Left Party for mayor and current favorite in the September elections, defended the exclusion of white swimmers, stating: “An association legally reserved the pool for its members. In this way, the Popular Pool facilitates access for people who are often affected by exclusion and racism. Calling this a form of discrimination is very revealing.”
“I find it totally unacceptable that a theater heavily subsidized with public funds misuses taxpayers’ money for a pool,” said Alexander Krauss, president of the Berlin Taxpayers Federation.
According to the theater’s artistic director, Matthias Lilienthal, an alternative event has been planned for Black children and youth. “We will continue collaborating with EOTO, continue with our events, and also devise an activity for these children and youth.” Lilienthal argued that the event simply complied with Berlin’s anti-discrimination law, which requires protected spaces for people who have suffered discrimination.
The Guardian highlighted that this was the latest in a long list of incidents linking pools with racism. In North America and Europe, pools have often served as focal points of broader racial tensions and exclusions.
Earlier this summer, an outdoor lake in the city of Halle, in eastern Germany, made news for denying entry to swimmers who did not speak German. In the Netherlands, the Human Rights Institute recently ruled against a pool after discovering it had subjected a Black child to an identity check.
The list of incidents spans decades. In 2013, the Swiss city of Bremgarten took measures to restrict asylum seekers’ access to pools. In Bulgaria, Roma (Gypsies) have reported discrimination they suffer in public pools, while in 2022, a pool in Romania was fined just over 2,000 euros for banning Roma children from entry.
Part of the association between racism and pools is probably due to the intimacy of these spaces, said Jeff Wiltse, author of “Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in the United States.” “They are intimate spaces visually, physically, and socially, and I think that continues to fuel people’s social anxiety,” he told the British newspaper.
Wiltse has long studied pools in the United States, reinterpreting them as places that reflect broader social tensions at a given time, from James Brock in 1964 pouring hydrochloric acid into a whites-only pool where Black men were swimming, to the Texas police officer who in 2015 pinned down an unarmed Black teenager and drew his weapon while trying to break up a pool party.
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