quote:
I can't take it anymore
A woman from Hamburg works in a new arrival centre for refugees. The woman in her mid thirties tells us how she experiences her day to day life there, and why she is now thinking about resigning.
The refugee crisis is intensifying more and more. In the lodgings in Hamburg the situation is extraordinarily difficult – in the „Welt am Sonntag“, an employee reports anonymously about her daily experience.
Since Autumn 2015 I have been working in a Hamburg new arrival centre for refugees as my main occupation. I applied for this job explicitly, it was exactly what I wanted to do. When the letter finally arrived confirming my employment, I was incredibly happy; finally I could not only theoretically help, but also do something practically for the refugees.
Correspondingly I went to my first day on the job in a great mood; I was obviously excited, of course, one is always like that on the first day in a new job, but otherwise I enjoyed myself there. My colleagues were engaged and very nice. With the refugees I didn't have any direct contact, but I greeted anyone I saw in the area full of enthusiasm and found them all really great.
„This will surely be really awesome here“, I thought to myself. In the next few days I dived into the work absolutely motivated. The work was supposed to be with the 1500 refugees who were housed there. I was responsible for giving them social advice, which means I was a contact person for all the social problems of the refugees. I also supported them with their asylum procedures and made doctor's appointments if they needed them.
Then came the first refugees into my office in which I wanted to give social advice – and after the first few visits I already noticed from them that my positive and idealistic expectation of them and their behaviour clearly differentiated itself from reality. Of course one can't just judge all refugees broadly – there are many among them who are very friendly, thankful and ready to integrate, very glad to be here. But if I am honest, working with 90 per cent of them is rather unpleasant and unfortunately not how I had thought about it before.
Firstly, many are extremely demanding. They come to me and demand that I immediately get them an apartment and nice car and best of all, a really good job. Because of course I have to do that, that's my job and they've only arrived here. Then when I don't do that and instead try to explain to them that it doesn't work like that, then they often become loud or even aggressive. An Afghan only recently threatened to kill himself, and a few Syrians and a group of Afghans declared they would go on a hunger strike until I helped them move to a different place. A colleague of mine who is originally from the Arab world was screamed at „We'll cut your head off“. Because of things like that and others, the police were here several times a week.
Secondly they often give very unreliable information. They come to me with their documents and tell me a story, which just can't be true. But they stick to it, and I can only be sure if I speak to my colleagues, who often say that the person was with them the day before and had told a different story. For example, there was a resident who came to me with a deportation document and wanted to know what would happen. I explained it to him, and he left. Shortly thereafter he went to one of my colleagues and suddenly showed completely new identification papers under a different name and said, he is this person with this other name. As a consequence he wasn't deported but moved to a different location.
Thirdly they only rarely keep appointments. Of course I make doctor's appointments for the refugees. All of them must do a basic medical, which consists of x-rays, an inoculation and a general check up. But many of them want to go to different doctors, above all to dentists and orthopaedists. Then I make the appointments for them, but when it's time, they just don't show up. This happens so often that the doctors have in the meantime asked us not to make so many appointments, but what am I supposed to do? I can't exactly deny a request for an appointment just because I suspect that the person wanting one won't show up.
And fourthly, and this is the worst of all: Some of the refugees behave horrendously to us women. Of course it's well known that they are above all single men who come to us, 65 or maybe even 70 per cent, I would personally estimate. They are all still young, only around 20, at the most 25 years old.
And a portion of them don't respect us women at all. They'll accept that they have to deal with us, but they don't take us seriously at all. If I say something to them as a woman, or give them an instruction, then they hardly listen, wave it away as unimportant, and turn themselves simply to one of my male colleagues. For us women they often only have suspicious or even pushy looks. They whistle after us, call after us something in a foreign language, which I and most of my colleagues don't understand, and then laugh. It's really very unpleasant. It's even happened that they photograph one of us with their smartphone. Just like that, unasked, even if one has protested. Finally I was going up a set of stairs. At that moment some of the men ran after me, went up the stairs behind laughing the entire time and – I presume – laughed at me and yelled something at me.
Female colleagues have told me that similar things have also happened to them. They've said that one simply can't do anything about it. That it simply belongs to the job here. This happens so often that if one wanted to report them to the police or move them to a different location, the facility would be clearly more empty. So they ignore it and try to not let it get to them further – which I have also started doing. I walked with my eyes directed straight forwards if they whistled after me or called out at me. I said nothing and didn't make a face in order to not encourage them, in order to not give them the feeling that they can hurt or influence me.
Yet that didn't help; it's even gotten worse – honestly: especially in the last weeks as more and more men from North Africa, Morocco, Tunisia or Libya come to us here in this facility. They were even more aggressive. At that point I couldn't just ignore it anymore – and reacted. In order to not subject myself to it anymore.
Concretely put: I started to dress differently. Really I am someone who sometimes likes to wear tight clothes – but not anymore. I put on exclusively wide cut pants and show very little below the neck. I have never really used much make up, at most a concealer. And I haven't changed myself only on the outside in order to protect myself from the harassment. I also behave differently. For example I avoid going to the places in the facility where the single men often stay. And when I absolutely have to, I try to get through very quickly and don't smile at anyone, so that they don't get the wrong impression. But mostly I stay in my small office, if possible for the entire day. And I don't take the train to work anymore, because recently a colleague of mine was followed to the U-Bahn station and was even hassled in the train. I want to spare myself of things like that and come to work therefore by car.
I know that this all sounds pretty hefty: dressing differently, avoiding particular areas and travelling only by car. And I find it terrible myself that I'm doing this all and that I feel I have to. But what I am supposed to do, what would the alternative be? Allow myself to continue to be stared at and harassed? Not a chance. I have no recourse through official channels. Not with this matter, nor with the other problems which we face, not with the office of the interior nor with the local Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. When one calls them, they often don't even answer the phone.
So for me the only option remaining is resignation. Yet so far I have ruled that out; I like my colleagues and the child refugees. And before I was so convinced of the job and the whole thing – at this point it's difficult to admit to oneself that this all is a bit different to how one had imagined. And resignation would obviously be exactly that, a concession. In the meantime I'm considering it deeply despite that. Many colleagues also want to resign. Because they can't take it anymore, because they can't just watch how everything is going wrong here and they can't do anything about it. And if I am honest: I can't take it anymore.