Faced with a huge influx of incoming refugees in 2015, and amid conservative backlash, a small village in Bavaria took Germany’s “We will manage” policy to heart.
Susanne Wentzler spoke at the Amos Fortune Forum on “The German Refugee Crisis, a threat or an opportunity? Reflections from an engaged volunteer” on Friday. Germany’s laws regarding the granting of asylum to certain catagories of refugees made it a popular destination in 2015, said Wentzler. In December, her small Bavarian village – which is about the size of Jaffrey – became home to about 180 refugees living in a tent camp.
“I would be out, walking my dogs, and come across refugees, obviously lost and looking for their new home,” said Wentzler.
She, and other members of her village, helped the refugees acclimate to their new home – enrolling the children in school, learning German, applying for more permanent residency, and getting jobs.
“We had to face huge communication issues,” said Wentzler. “We formed groups according to ethnic groups, so we only had to face one foreign language at a time. There were some people that didn’t even recognize the Latin alphabet, much less speak the language.”
But that did not stop volunteers from continuing to try to integrate refugees – starting with their children and school, which is required for all children living in Germany from the age of 6. And Wentzler said that the children have adapted the fastest, some being nearly fluent in the language after only a few months in the country.
It is the similarities, not the differences that stand out when you come to know people, said Wentzler. All little girls like pink. Everyone likes to play music. We are not so different.
But, said Wentzler, the experiment in her own village only worked so well because there were more volunteers than refugees willing to work together to make sure those people are engaged in their new community and have access to the resources they need.
“We can integrate many people,” said Wentzler. “But in order to completely resolve the refugee crisis, we have to solve the conflicts in their country of origin.”
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172, ext. 244.