On June 27, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, dressed in his trademark gray suit, jumped into the Thomas Jefferson Pool in East Harlem to celebrate the start of the city’s outdoor swimming pool season. Just over a month later, on August 7, a similar scene unfolded in Berlin. Elif Eralp, Die Linke’s candidate for Berlin mayor in the September elections, appeared at the opening of the Volksbad, the newest outdoor pool in the city. Wearing a red swimsuit, she untied a towel bearing the slogan “Tax the Rich” and stepped into the bright blue water. The parallel was striking (and strategic). Both moments captured the rising power of left-wing populism that places newfound symbolic weight on public pools as sites of public joy, affordability, and togetherness.

The Volksbad was built this summer by the Volksbühne, Berlin’s famous political theater, under its new director, Matthias Lilienthal. Nestled in front of the socialist classicist theater building dated from 1913, the free-entry public pool is part artistic project, part political statement, part temporary public amenity. Friederike Kötter and Anna Yeboah, who jointly lead the programming of the Volksbad, described the pool to me as a public gesture in a city where public infrastructure has been systematically eroded over recent decades and where public spaces are increasingly commercialized and surveilled.

The Volksbad sparked controversy even before its opening. Local politicians in the social democratic party criticized the theater directorship for spending taxpayer money on swimming pools instead of investing in art and culture. The pool’s cost—approximately 300,000 euros—further fueled criticism from across the political spectrum, with some dismissing the installation as a marketing ploy. Yet the backlash reached a new intensity when the Volksbad, together with Each One Teach One (EOTO) e.V., a community organization dedicated to the education and empowerment of Black people in Berlin, planned a one-day gathering for Black, African, and Afro-diasporic youth and their families. The event was framed by right-wing and conservative politicians and social media influencers as evidence of reverse racism; the AfD’s leader Alice Weidel described it as ”apartheid.” The organizers had to cancel the event for being unable to ensure the physical and psychological safety of the participants. Less than a week after opening, the Volksbad pool was forced to close for a day.

Once more, Black communities and activists were forced onto the defensive, having to explain yet again why safe spaces matter for structurally disadvantaged groups: the simple comfort of inhabiting a space free from the white gaze. Commentary pieces laid out, patiently, how Germany continues to fail in acknowledging anti-Black racism, tracing its legacy back to German colonialism and the country’s persistent inability to reckon with that history. Others pushed back against the discrediting of safe spaces by arguing that their legitimacy is grounded in Germany’s legal framework governing public life and anti-discrimination protections, particularly the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG). Activists supporting EOTO launched a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than 80,000 euros. A week after the incident, a demonstration was held in front of the Volksbad to support Black communities’ right to create their own safe spaces, and to ensure that the cancellation of the event would not set a precedent for limiting minority-focused events in Berlin. During their speeches, activists emphasized that the swim event “was supposed to be about Black joy.” They stressed that the goal was not to create completely safe spaces but rather “safer spaces” where the harms of racism could be mitigated, until broader structures of racism are dismantled. Speakers also warned the attendees about the presence of right-wing livestreamers who have begun to regularly attend demonstrations to record confrontations with participants. Their warning underscored the fragility of even aspirationally “safer spaces,” whose protections can be quickly eroded by hostility from outside.