The camp is on the edge of a municipal forest. Syrians walk among the
pine trees, sometimes asking each other for directions in Arabic. In a
grassy clearing an Albanian dad was playing football with his son. At
the city’s railway station, a well-to-do Syrian couple said they were
leaving for another shelter in Brandenburg, one of 16 German federal
states now dealing with a major housing emergency.
Nobody knows how Merkel’s all-embracing offer to Syrian and Afghan refugees will work out. Attacks on asylum seekers’ homes are on the rise. According to the German interior ministry, there were 173 criminal incidents in the first six months of this year. Last month, Merkel visited an asylum seekers’ hostel in Heidenau, near Dresden, after neo-Nazis attacked it, battling with police over two successive nights.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, unidentified attackers threw a burning torch at an asylum seekers’ hostel in Berlin’s Marzahn district. No one was hurt. There have been recent incidents in Salzhemmendorf in Lower Saxony, another deprived region of former East Germany, where the National Democratic party has its strongest political support, in 2014 winning nearly 5% of the vote.
Back at the demonstration, the neo-Nazis and anti-fascists were preparing to walk and cycle home – but not before swapping a few last insults. The anti-refugee rally featured far-right rock and an adapted version of the hit single Timber by American rapper Pitbull. Its new German lyrics began: “Unsere Heimat, unsere Stadt” – our homeland, our city.
“Wir sind das Volk!” – we are the people – the neo-Nazis shouted.
“Nazis out!” their opponents replied.
Nobody knows how Merkel’s all-embracing offer to Syrian and Afghan refugees will work out. Attacks on asylum seekers’ homes are on the rise. According to the German interior ministry, there were 173 criminal incidents in the first six months of this year. Last month, Merkel visited an asylum seekers’ hostel in Heidenau, near Dresden, after neo-Nazis attacked it, battling with police over two successive nights.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, unidentified attackers threw a burning torch at an asylum seekers’ hostel in Berlin’s Marzahn district. No one was hurt. There have been recent incidents in Salzhemmendorf in Lower Saxony, another deprived region of former East Germany, where the National Democratic party has its strongest political support, in 2014 winning nearly 5% of the vote.
Back at the demonstration, the neo-Nazis and anti-fascists were preparing to walk and cycle home – but not before swapping a few last insults. The anti-refugee rally featured far-right rock and an adapted version of the hit single Timber by American rapper Pitbull. Its new German lyrics began: “Unsere Heimat, unsere Stadt” – our homeland, our city.
“Wir sind das Volk!” – we are the people – the neo-Nazis shouted.
“Nazis out!” their opponents replied.
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