Germany Helps House Refugees as they Wait for Asylum

As refugees flood in....

In this photo taken on Thursday, July 30, 2015, Syrian refugee Leila, no last name given, poses in an emergency shelter in Berlin where she waits with her family for her pending registration as asylum seekers. The surge in migrants and refugees to Europe from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and elsewhere this year has sent countries scrambling to come up with housing - both temporary for those awaiting the outcome of asylum applications, and permanent for those allowed to stay. Many European countries face similar problems, but none greater than Germany. Europe’s richest economy attracted 43 percent of Europe’s 400,000 asylum applications in the first half of the year - more than double the number in the same period of 2014. (AP Photo/Olga Syrova) 

Associated PressAug. 29, 2015 | 5:44 a.m. EDT+ More

  By OLGA SYROVA, Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — Twenty-three-year-old Leila, her husband and two small children spent their first week in Germany in a temporary shelter, an austere but desperately needed haven after a traumatic flight from Syria that began when her husband was told to fight for the government.

Among an expected 800,000 asylum seekers flowing into Germany this year — some four times last year's count — she and her family shared a small room built in a converted covered tennis court in downtown Berlin during their first week in the country in August, furnished with three Ikea bunk beds, a small table and a small closet. They received three meals a day in a common room for the 300 refugees in the facility, and bathrooms were shared.

The setup was basic by European standards, but for Leila, who cannot forget the bodies littering the streets of the Syrian city of Aleppo, it was a fresh start.

"We were so afraid, before we came here," said Leila, who requested that her last name not be used for fear of retribution against her family still in Syria. "Now we feel comfortable because we are treated well ... We feel safe here."

The surge in migrants and refugees to Europe from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and elsewhere this year has sent countries scrambling to come up with housing — both temporary for those awaiting the outcome of asylum applications, and permanent for those allowed to stay. German authorities say they have 45,000 spots in temporary facilities for new asylum applicants — excluding tent settlements that have been hastily erected — but they need as many as 150,000.

Many European countries face similar problems, but none greater than Germany. Europe's richest economy attracted 43 percent of Europe's 400,000 asylum applications in the first half of the year — more than double the number in the same period of 2014.

The converted tennis court where Leila and her family are being housed was supposed to be closed in May, but it has been kept open to help deal with the flood of newcomers. Funded by the city, it is run by the Berlin City Mission, a Christian nonprofit organization, and staffed largely by volunteers.

Elsewhere in Berlin, portable shipping containers have been converted into small stacks of apartments to accommodate 2,400 refugees around the capital. At one in container village in southwestern Berlin, which is just opening, colorfully painted containers offer comfortable space for 300 refugees. It boasts single rooms with shared kitchens and bathrooms on each floor, as well as small flats for families, and even accommodation for the disabled.

In government and non-governmental projects around the country, former military barracks are being converted to housing, disused nursing homes are being refurbished and even small tent cities are being erected. Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has already doubled the financial assistance available to local authorities to 1 billion euros ($112 billion) and has called a meeting with state leaders in September to discuss the refugee situation further.

Some Germans have taken matters into their own hands. Last year, Berlin resident Jonas Kakoschke decided with his roommate to house a refugee in her place while she was spending six months abroad.

Kakoschke helped the refugee, a Mali-born man from Senegal, learn the language, get his paperwork done and eventually find his own apartment. Now, with the online project "Refugees Welcome" that Kakosche and his roommate founded together, they help find private placements for more new arrivals, by matching ages, language skills and other criteria.

"Many refugees say they don't have direct contact with local population and our project helps them with that," Kakoschke said.

Through July, they say they have placed 64 refugees across Germany and 34 in Austria in private apartments. There's also been reports of people across Germany who have taken in refugees on their own, but it is not clear exactly how many.

Euro crisis turns German-speaking Italians against Rome

3 October 2012 Last updated at 08:13 ET

By Bethany Bell BBC News, South Tyrol (Alto Adige)

 

Largely German-speaking South Tyrol has been part of Italy since the end of World War I

In the vineyards of South Tyrol's Alpine valleys, the grape harvest is under way.

Alois Lageder's family have made wine here for five generations, but when some of the vines were planted, this region was part of Austria. And most people here speak German, even though it has been part of Italy since the end of World War I.

Mr Lageder says the mix of cultures is an asset.  "We are Austrians, we were Austrians 100 years ago and so we have the Austrian culture, but also the Austrian or German mentality and approach to work," he said.

 

Local wine maker Alois Lageder believes South Tyrol's people are Austrians at heart

"But I think we are lucky because living here in the middle between north and south, we are not too strong or too straight. I think this is our big advantage, that we understand the Italian mentality but we understand the mentality of our big markets like Austria and Germany and Switzerland."
South Tyrol is Italy's richest province, a largely German-speaking part of the country that has autonomous status. Its Italian name is Alto Adige.

But now the euro crisis means the Italian government wants to cash in. It is asking the regional government here to pay more, fuelling resentment of Rome and raising the spectre of separatism.

Tensions German speakers are the local majority in South Tyrol - but native Italian speakers live here too. Relations between the two groups have not always been easy.

The journalist and author Lucio Giudiceandrea says before the region was granted autonomy in the 1970s, tensions sometimes ran to violence. "Germans and Italians lived for many years in conflict with each other because South Tyrol was annexed to Italy at the end of World War I against the will of the local German-speaking population. The Italians were sent here as colonisers and there is a longstanding hostility between the groups," he said. "The autonomy system [set up in the 1970s] gave us the chance to live side by side, but with no great contacts."

Over the years, tensions have eased. Being bilingual is now an accepted fact of life; members of Italy's national police, the Carabinieri, are regularly sent to brush up their German at the Alpha Beta Piccadilly language school in Bolzano.

But these days, Italy's financial problems are reawakening old resentments.

Tax gripes Walking through the affluent streets of Bolzano, with its quaint Tyrolean architecture, it is easy to come away with the impression that South Tyrol is remarkably untouched by the euro crisis.
Unemployment is low and business is thriving. But, as in other wealthy parts of Europe, many German speakers here resent having to bail out southern Italians - whom they see as spendthrift and profligate.

Elmar Thaler, Federation, Historic South Tyrolean Riflemen: 'People are asking why we should have to pay for Italy. We are not actually Italians anyway. '  Up to now, 90% of taxes paid here stayed here. 

But the government in Rome needs cash, and wants more money from South Tyrol. Siegfried Brugger, an MP from the governing South Tyrolean Peoples' party, says that goes against their autonomy agreement. But he says they are willing to negotiate. "We have a lot of problems because we have to give a lot of money to Rome," he said. "But we want to decide ourselves how and where to save and for us it is very important to collaborate with Italy and not to give money without a guarantee."

And some people want to leave Italy altogether. The 500-year-old group, the Südtiroler Schützenbund (the Federation of Historic South Tyrolean Riflemen), has long campaigned for reunification with North Tyrol, which is part of Austria.

Separatism calls In April, the group organised a protest in Bolzano demanding freedom from Rome. It was attended by around 5,000 men and women in lederhosen and traditional dress. The Schützen's leader, Elmar Thaler, says the worse things get economically, the better it is for their cause.

 

Elmar Thaler says South Tyrol should separate completely from Rome. 

 

"People are asking why should we have to pay for Italy?" he asked. "We aren't actually Italian anyway. In this way, the crisis has made many people aware that they haven't got anything to do with Italy."

This is a minority view. Separatism is not the hot political issue that it is in the Spanish province of Catalonia, and the Schuetzen say they are not linked to other Italian separatist movements, like the Northern League.But Siegfried Brugger says many politicians in South Tyrol are watching developments in places like the Basque Country and Scotland very closely.

Lucio Giudiceandrea says the region is at a turning point. "The situation in Italy and all over Europe is no longer certain and the money is no longer freely available," he said.  "I think we have to learn to live with the other group and to see each other not as rivals but as friends. If we don't, for sure we will fall into conflicts. And of course this situation depends only on us."

On a sunny day in Bolzano, the cafes do a roaring trade in cappuccino, as a street musician in a Tyrolean hat with a feather plays that most Austrian of tunes, the Blue Danube. The financial crisis is testing Europe's historic fault-lines.