Empathy and Anxiety As Migrants Arrive
ERFURT, Germany — The mood in the school gymnasium was turning. City officials told residents that a group of migrants, mostly Syrians, had been housed in the neighborhood the night before.
An elderly woman stepped up to the microphone: “Will you be building a mosque next?” she demanded.
A schoolteacher asked, “How do we protect our children?”
One young man did not even bother asking a question: “This has to stop,” he announced, to a smattering of applause.
“This” is an unprecedented stream of primarily Muslim migrants into a city that until recently was so white that a black man in the local Green Party was reportedly known as “Erfurt’s African.”
In this city of 208,000, the number of Muslims stood around 500 until recently, the mayor estimates. But by Christmas, 4,000 migrants, many from Muslim countries, could settle here.
“Erfurt is changing,” said the mayor, Andreas Bausewein.
About 800,000 asylum seekers are expected to have arrived in Germany by the end of the year, plunging the country into a live experiment that many believe could do more to transform it than even the fall of Communism.
In the aftermath of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcoming stance toward the thousands arriving from war and strife in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, ordinary cities like this one are suddenly coping with the extraordinary. From 100 migrants a month in June to 300 a week now, the effects here and in other areas are accelerating. And it is at this level that the experiment will either work or not.
To work, there must be beds and showers. Translators and teachers. Social workers and police officers. Homes and classrooms. Jobs and money. And there must be cooperation from average Germans. In Erfurt and elsewhere, welcoming the migrants is not just a matter of managing logistics, it is also managing the public mood.
So far, this city is adapting. With a half- day’s notice recently, a former conference center was transformed into a temporary camp for 674 people. Spare beds in 19 homes set aside for migrants were filled, and new ones were identified. The building used for the first Syrian arrivals — a disused brothel — turned out to be particularly suitable: small rooms with sep- arate showers and bathrooms. “It’s perfect,” said Jens Hennig, one of the social workers running it.
Residents have welcomed the trains of migrants with cheering. Housing facilities have turned away donations and volunteers because storage rooms are full. Even as some in the gymnasium and at other meetings like it expressed anxiety over crime, higher taxes and “more Muslims,” others stood up to express sympathy with the migrants.
But unease is palpable. Recently, there was an arson attack on three (still uninhabited) homes for migrants in the northern part of Thuringia, the state in which Erfurt is the capital.
The migrant crisis is not just a humanitarian imperative, it is an opportunity. Germany has among the lowest birthrates in Europe. The population is shrinking and aging, particularly in the former East.
“I just met a refugee family with five children,” Dieter Lauinger, the state minister for migration, said.
Settling refugees while managing the public’s mood.
“Five children. These people could be paying our retirement.”
Businesses in the region are looking for 3,000 apprentices. Electricians and builders are in demand. Doctors and teachers, too.
Not all are happy with the resources dedicated to non- Germans, said Sabine Iffarth, headmistress of the primary school.
Those granted asylum in Germany get an apartment, health insurance, a language course and 399 euros (about $ 450) a month. Many in the neighborhood are unemployed and have problems of their own. “We fail to integrate the losers in our society, and then we ask them to integrate the refugees,” she said.
Mr. Hennig, the social worker, said all the migrants he has met want to learn German and work as soon as possible.
Shyar Ibrahym, 34, a car mechanic and Kurdish refugee from Aleppo, Syria, wore a German soccer shirt on his second night in Erfurt. A German flag adorns the wall of his room.
“I love Germany,” Mr. Ibrahym said. “I will be a good citizen.”