The recent attacks in Paris have unleashed
an outpouring of hatred against refugees on social media – people looking for
scapegoats from the outside rather than investigating why so many of the
terrorists are now home grown. Here I'm writing about my own experiences with
real refugees, how Berlin is handling their arrival, and the importance of
civilian efforts within the crisis and in aiding integration to avoid further
tragedies.
When I was 16 I went on a trip to Syria
with my grandfather. I was constantly amazed by the beauty and vitality of
Syria and the friendliness of the people. I spent a lot of evenings talking to
our Syrian tour guide Hassan, an open and gentle man who spoke flawless German
and loved telling me about his wife and children.
The
bazaars in Aleppo and Damascus were packed with people and filled with
carpets, jewellery and spices. The ancient Roman ruins of Palmyra in the desert
were magnificent and still, especially in the evening when we were the only
tourists who had ventured out again to walk through the columns. Syria was
everything I had expected and more, and I returned to Slough and my looming
GCSEs determined to visit again.
Two years later the civil war began and I
followed the developing events with dismay. Today, Damascus would be
unrecognisable as the bustling, cosmopolitan city I fell in love with almost
six years ago. The Old City of Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been
destroyed and its beautiful citadel shelled in a conflict between the Free
Syrian Army and the Syrian Army. This year, ISIL has taken control of Palmyra
and has already obliterated several of the buildings that were still standing.
The magnitude of human death and suffering is unimaginable.
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| Whirling Dervishes at a Concert in Aleppo |
Last year, my grandfather contacted the
travel agency to ask if they knew what had happened to Hassan, our guide. He
discovered that Hassan was a refugee in Istanbul and had found work as a tour
guide in the city. Despite being very poor and, as he wrote, suffering from the
sad news which daily came from his homeland, he was trying to stay positive and
enjoying the challenge of learning Turkish. But like all refugees, he will
suffer the loss of his home for a very long time.
Perhaps
because of my experience and relationship with Syria, the human tragedy of the
refugee crisis has hit me very hard. It was painful to sit at home in England
reading about the desperate situation in the rest of Europe while feeling
powerless to help. But a month ago I moved to Berlin and quickly had the
opportunity to become actively involved in efforts to help the refugees there. Soon after I arrived, I attended a study day
organised by the European Council in Germany about how Berlin was handling the
crisis and about different initiatives to aid refugee integration. There were
local government and NGO representatives from cities all around Europe who were
preparing to take in refugees, but France and the UK remained unrepresented.
The day
was an eye-opener. Hundreds to thousands of refugees arrive in Berlin every day. By November 25th, over 65,750 refugees had been received into the capital city this year. Each German state has a quota (according to population and internal
revenue) of refugees sent from camps at the borders and other German cities.
Every state has a different system in place for dealing with refugees. In
Berlin, refugees must register at the LaGeSo (the Regional Office for Health
and Social Affairs) on arrival and receive a second appointment for when they
will be registered more fully. Initially, they stay in emergency shelters, but
once they have been to their appointment and are fully registered, they can
claim state-paid accommodation and board.
Refugees
in the process of claiming asylum (which can take over a year) are entitled to
400 hours of free language classes at adult education centres and their
children can go to school – in Berlin, all children are entitled to education
regardless of the legal status of their parents. As the children generally
cannot speak German, they are placed in “Welcome Classes” in schools to be
taught the language, with the aim of ultimate integration into the standard
school system.
As part
of the talk, we visited a holiday class (it was October half term at the time)
for refugee children, run by a local charity which also provides emergency
shelter for refugees. The children begin each day with a morning greeting song,
standing in a circle holding hands. The song starts in German and is then
repeated by all of the languages spoken by the children. Our final stop was at
Refugio, a community living project which houses refugees and locals together
to promote interaction and integration.
Just
before the group was getting ready to retire to the hotel, our host at Refugio
received a phone call. An emergency shelter for refugees which had only
recently been opened had called for help – they were to receive three buses
filled with refugees that night and they didn't have enough volunteers. To my
surprise, the entire study group (about twenty people) volunteered. We all
headed straight for the S-Bahn to travel to the other side of Berlin.
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| One of the accommodation areas of the emergency shelter being set up (photo courtesy of: http://www.berliner-stadtmission.de/fluechtlinge/fluechtlingszentrum-mertensstrasse) |
The
emergency shelter set up in an old cigarette factory is run by the Berliner
Stadtmission, a Christian organisation very active in helping refugees in
Berlin. The new refugees hadn't arrived yet and as the shelter had only
recently opened, there wasn't a very organised system for volunteers in place.
We were eventually taken into a very large hall. The sides of the hall are
fenced off accommodation areas, separated by gender. Inside there are rows and
rows of cheap Ikea bunk-beds – altogether the shelter can accommodate 900
people, all in one hall. There is a large space in the centre of the hall, some
of which is taken up by about 40 tables and benches around which men and
families sit talking. A series of long tables form the food and drinks station.
There is always water, juice, tea and coffee available, and food is served
three times a day. Near the entrance to the hall are two long tables next to a
collection of wall sockets where men sit charging their smart phones.
There is a brief lull, but once the buses arrive there is non-stop
action. The new arrivals are first checked for weapons by security guards
before they are let into a fenced off portion of the adjoining hall to wait to
be registered. There are only two tables where registration can take place,
with a volunteer to fill out the forms, a security guard, and a translator
behind each one. Most of the guards can speak Arabic, but there aren't enough
people who can translate Farsi or the languages spoken by the Balkan refugees.
Together with two girls I hand out juice and water to the refugees
waiting in line to be registered. There are many families and the adults look
exhausted, sitting down on the floor, while the children run around playing
with strips of barrier tape tied to the fencing. Many gratefully take the
drinks, others desperately need to go to the toilet, but I tell them that they
have to wait until they have been registered. Despite the language barrier, a
lot of them know enough English to communicate with me on a basic level. It
feels surreal finally having contact with the refugees who have been dominating
the news.
Once refugees have been registered, they are given their bedding and
taken to their beds. It's not as easy as it sounds. Some families don't
understand why the man is being taken to a separate accommodation area and seem
afraid because they don't know what is going on. Once I have given a refugee
their bedding, I need to navigate the packed and badly labelled accommodation
area in order to find their bed. In some cases the bed doesn't look like it has
been cleaned yet and all I can do is make an apologetic face and clear away
anything I can. I mostly take groups of women and children to their beds –
there aren't enough female volunteers and the male ones aren't allowed to enter
the female accommodation area.
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| Bedding prepared for the arrival of new refugees at the emergency shelter |
Hours of this pass quickly. After an already exhausting day and with
no food since lunchtime, I'm running on adrenaline. I quickly get the hang of
it and start trying to make conversation with the new arrivals, asking where
they are from, but most of the time communication is impossible. When it is, I
get asked questions I don't know the answers to, and all I can say is that I
don't know. At one point I walk past a toddler screaming in her pram and the
mother isn't in sight. I try comforting the child and eventually lift her into
my arms after struggling with the straps. I'm totally at a loss for what to do
but none of the women around me are claiming the child. I stand there for a
while patting her on the back until she stops crying. I'm about to take her out
of the accommodation area to see if I can find the mother, when she comes
ambling through the entrance holding another child by the hand, and calmly
takes her from me.
We leave the shelter just before midnight. As soon as I have left I
feel absolutely exhausted and on the verge of tears. The long day, lack of
food, and adrenaline had left me feeling shocked and emotional and I couldn't
stop thinking about the child I had held in my arms. The rest of the study
group were all in a similar state.
Since then I have returned to the shelter to volunteer regularly.
After the initial shock, it soon felt normal. I have worked at the drinks
counter, handed out food at lunch time, given out toiletries and have learned
how to register newcomers and tell them the house rules through a translator.
After some minor fights and rising tensions between the Arab and Afghan
refugees, discussions about religion and politics are banned at the shelter.
The situation in Berlin is far from perfect. There are too many
refugees arriving every day – in October, 1000 a day were arriving in the multicultural district of
Neukölln alone, and they only have the capacity to register 300 a day. There
aren't enough emergency shelters, even after the abandoned Templehof airport
was opened to house over 6000 refugees. Hundreds have to spend the cold night
outside of the LaGeSo because they can't be accommodated. As a response, the
website and Facebook group Place4Refugees arranges for refugees to stay with
Berliners happy to host them in their private homes. Those with a room to spare
often go there directly to invite people to stay with them for the night.
Of course, there is also anti-refugee sentiment in Germany, as there
is in the UK. After the attacks in Paris, the disproportionately loud voice of
extreme right-wing groups calling out against refugees is inevitably going to
grow louder and gain momentum. The only way to counteract this is by voicing
our solidarity with the refugees and actively becoming involved when possible.
Although refugees in Berlin are entitled to free language classes, the demand
is too high. “Language cafes” are springing up throughout Berlin and civilians
are devoting a couple of hours a week to provide free, informal German language
classes for refugees. This type of interaction is vital for their integration
into society. Not only is knowing the language a necessary skill, but the one
on one contact between Germans and refugees develops relationships between the
communities. The majority of the killers in the Paris attacks were not
refugees, but marginalised European citizens turned extremists. Only a show of
solidarity and an effort towards integration can prevent such tragedies from
occurring in the future.
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| A sign among the candles and flowers left outside the French embassy in Berlin the day after the Paris attacks reading "In solidarity, we are all humans, this is what refugees are fleeing from". |
It is clear that the state, communities and volunteers play vital
roles in caring for refugees in Berlin. It's not enough, and with so many
people entering Europe, that is hardly surprising. But there is a widespread
feeling of solidarity. The emergency shelters would be unable to function
without volunteers helping every day, and integration can only be possible if
the citizens are willing to engage and communicate.
There is no lack of potential volunteers and community support in
the UK. What is missing is support from the government. The Facebook group
“Calais – People to People Solidarity – Action from UK” has over 30,000
members, all of whom are desperate to help the refugees in any way they can.
David Cameron ignored a letter signed by 84 bishops offering support and
shelter for up to 50,000 refugees. The 20,000 refugees Cameron has pledged to
accept in the UK before 2020 is absolutely laughable in proportion to the
number of refugees seeking asylum in Europe. It isn't a question of politics or
of religion, it's a question of our human responsibility. The people in the UK
are ready to help, why isn't the government? And when they are asked in twenty
years time, or in fifty years time, why they didn't extend a hand in the
biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War, how are they going to
answer?
