Associated Reporters Abroad (ARA) - Professional freelance journalists reporting for media outlets worldwide

The Al Jazeera Konditorei or pastry shop on Neukölln's Sonnenalle is sparkling, a mirrored shrine to baklava, that nutty, syrupy Arab sweet that rules over Strüdel in this part of Berlin. The young woman serving me explains that this desert - of myriad varieties, I order mine with pistachio - is Palestinian, which is where her family came from before they moved to Lebanon, some time after the 1948 Israel-Arab war.

Seventeen years ago the family joined a wave of nearly 80,000 Palestinians that have moved to Germany, most escaping the Lebanese civil war in the 1970s - and often a life as fringe dwellers in refugee camps, a situation continuing to this day.