When Germany’s Nazi government built Tempelhof Airport in 1930s Berlin, it probably didn’t expect that the site would one day become a refugee camp. Since this Monday, however, European migrants have been slowly moving into the former airport to sleep in tents pitched under the hangar roof. Up to 1,000 people (mainly escapees from the war in Syria) will move into the new camp within the coming weeks, a small portion of the 800,000 displaced people expected to arrive in Germany this year.

There’s sweet poetic justice in a monument created by modern history’s most loathsome regime being turned to humanitarian use. There’s nonetheless far more to the Tempelhof site than its Nazi origins alone. The old airport remains one of contemporary Berlin’s most contested sites, a place where just last year a citywide referendum saw Berliners reject plans to redevelop the airport grounds with housing. The temporary refugee accommodation adds a sharp twist to this story. At Tempelhof, Berliners have effectively said no to real estate developers—and yes to refugees.

To be fair, the site rejected for development doesn’t cover exactly the same spot as the new camp. The airport building itself has long been a white elephant in the making. When completed in 1941 it was one of the largest buildings in the world, a sweeping structure covering 300,000 square meters (well over 3 million square feet) designed to look from above like an eagle in flight. Improbably close to the densely populated neighborhoods of central Berlin, the airport had a short runway, and after the war commercial use steadily dwindled toward a trickle of short-hop flights. It finally closed in 2008.

Since then, exhibitions and events have squatted in the abandoned hangars, but it’s outside on the airfield that the real transformation has taken place. The airport grounds are now a park—a singularly popular one at that.