Since last Wednesday, 16.09.2015:
25 ooo refugees arrived in Croatia, were transported to the Hungarian border.
Saturday, 20.09.2015:
13 000 refugees came to Austria, 1375 refugees left for Bavaria, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)
Since Saturday, 20.9.2015:
4000 refugees arrived at the border of Croatia and Serbia, were bused to Hungary.
20.,21.09.2015:
50 000 refugees came to Austria. From there most of them want to go to the FRG, a lot of them go on their own. Other countries they go to or want to go to are the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden where they have relatives or connections.
No statistics about the refugees and their professions are available. 15 to 20% are illiterate. Knowledge of the German language is the condition for the integration into our economic system. It will take 3 to 5 years until they can be integrated into the internal labour market. In the FRG there are 600 000 vacant positions, learned professionals are missing.
21.09.2015:
Numbers of refugees, who will come to the FRG are made known, but not officially. The news talk about 800.000 or 1.000.000 people only for this year.
Tuesday, 22.9.2015:
After Munich Cologne established the second gateway to distribute the refugees to the Centres of first admission to the FRG. This night 570 refugees arrived by train. They will stay for 5 hours in tents near the airport, get necessary treatment (food, clothes, medical care etc.). Afterwards they will be transported to the centres of first admission.
To come to Europe they take the West Balkan route, a dangerous one, not only because of the people smugglers, but also because of criminals, who attack them. They walk Their children, only three, four years old, walk. They carry their babies and the small ones.
They only have the absolutely necessary things with them. They don’t have the right shoes.
The border to Serbia is closed by Hungary. Refugees go instead to Croatia, Croatia sends them to the Hungarian border.Therefore Hungary built a barbed wire fence at its border to Croatia. In Hungary they are not allowed to stay, they are handled like criminals, so they were brought to Austria. The fences are now ready, but the refugees destroyed them and crawled through, as long as they were able to, means: until the police hinders them.
As I said, these are only highlights.
Christl Stephanblome is a retired German Gymnasium teacher living in Leverkusen, Germany, near Cologne. She taught in Germany for 35 years and has traveled the world including several visits to regions of Canada.
