Refugees and a Reckless Driver

Yesterday, after waking up in the early afternoon, I had an errand in Moabit — a quarter of Berlin that is a little north of Mitte, or the city centre. Generally I go there through the S- and U-Bahn station Zoologischer Garten, which is to say the sprawling commuter node at the edge of the Berlin Zoological Gardens, itself in the left bottom corner of the sprawling central park of the Tiergarten. This time I was running late, so instead of taking the buses and risking the delays inherent in the heavy traffic, I walked as briskly as I could; it took 37 minutes to reach the U9 U-Bahn line platform.

THE errand was by the campus of the Landesamt for Gesundheit und Soziales, or the Berlin state office for Health and Social Welfare. It is a heterogeneous mixture of ancient brick buildings, parking niches, low mid-20th century edifices that have an ad-hoc air much like the prefabricated 'portables' in which my siblings and I had our classes when the school buildings weren't large enough for all of the students, and landscaping with shrubs and a park full of loosely planted trees that shade it but that also permit the light to reach the grass freely. The asylum seekers — who are registered and then distributed to housing in the rest of Germany or to the communes of Berlin there — were either gathered under overhanging first floors of buildings, or the awning of a restaurant or bar, or streaming about in leather jackets, rain jackets or transparent rain ponchos.

Lately the 'LaGeSo' has frequently appeared in the Berlin evening news. Firstly, because it is a main setting in Berlin's share in the refugee crisis. But, secondly, because it reports the inevitable irregularities in the government's handling of the refugees. One such irregularity: in order to be distributed, the refugees are asked to come to the campus on a certain day. Then they have to wait until their call numbers appear on a digital signboard — outside the building. There is no shelter or warmth to shield them from the rain and from the cold, which is expected to set in over the weekend, with the first 0° temperature at nighttime. Lastly, there is a safety issue — for example, a child seems to have been kidnapped from the campus.

At any rate, yesterday, at House R. a handful of volunteers — freelance volunteers as well as practiced volunteers from the neighbourhood group Moabit hilft, I think; but the Johanniter and other organizations as well as the Landesamt itself* are on the campus, too — was huddling in the roofed porch. At the foot of the entrance path, there was a thin barricade of benches and red-and-white tape. On the other side of a barricade, a handful of people in rain ponchos (asylum-seekers, I guessed) was wordlessly standing as if waiting to be let in. 'We have nothing for you here,' said one of the volunteers loudly. I thought it was a rather poignant scene.

(*Also, the medical personnel that volunteers through the Ärztekammer. I still haven't quite understood who the green-jacketed people are who seem to be in charge of the campus — they also stand at the entrance to the campus, for example, in pairs, and seem to offer low-level security.)

Later there was a happier touching scene. A small boy and — I think — his brother, were walking together across a little lawn. His rain poncho reached his feet, overlong, and it had a neat gnomey peak on his head; and altogether the stumpy figure was rather like a pre-schooler in costume as a ghost for Halloween. I almost had to repress tears of emotion at how cute he was, and at how nicely he and his brother seemed to get along; and then thought that I am getting sentimental in my advanced age.

*

I entered the bus east of the U-Bahn station Turmstraße, and then left it after an entertaining ride — made entertaining by the 'colour commentary' of the driver — and walked from the Ernst-Reuter-Platz on the way back.

Indicating (one of) the reason(s) for the traffic congestion, I passed the barricades that are securing the Straße des 17. Juni. There will be a mass demonstration against the trade agreements TTIP* and CETA. As far as pedestrians went, while the square at Zoologischer Garten, as well as the Wittenbergplatz, were teeming, rain and all, the Siegessäule (Victory Column) in the Tiergarten park was fairly abandoned.

It was tranquil in parts of the Hofjägerallee, too, amongst the acorns and the fallen chestnuts, the underbrush, the older oaks and plane trees, the setts, rain dripping and dropping into a half-overgrown ditch, and the sand of Berlin. Many birds, it appeared, have migrated south of Berlin — or perhaps were taking shelter. Just the grey-and-black 'storm crows' were neither perturbed by wind nor rain.

In the lesser streets, at any rate, the road traffic scarcely improved. As I was walking along the sidewalk, I had almost reached an intersection, when a car ramped up on the sidewalk right behind me and rode along the middle of it a few metres to reach a driveway. It was like Grand Theft Auto, or a miniature Hollywood thriller.

* TTIP = Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (United States - European Union)
CETA = Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Canada - EU)