Kisses, Lego toys and cheers from German hosts: end of the line at last for Great Exodus
STEPPING tentatively down the train steps ahead of her mother, the little Syrian girl clutching her toy elephant brought ragged cheers from the crowd of waiting Germans. Along the platform, a boy not much older, wrapped in an EU flag, beamed for the cameras.
For these two, and the other 500 or so refugees who clambered off trains after their epic journey yesterday, Munich station represented both the end of despair and a portal into a promised land. This, after all they had endured, was the only place on Earth they now wanted to be.
Exhausted, hungry, a little bewildered, the refugees were also met with clapping and cries of welcome, and some appeared astounded by the warmth of the reception. Children were handed sweets, mothers received clothes and bread; a German child clutching a Lego fire engine pressed it into the hands of a Syrian boy his own age.
One refugee, a youth of 15, planted an irreverent kiss on the forehead of an elderly Bavarian woman who had bent down to pick up a dropped purse on the station concourse. In different circumstances this might well have incurred some displeasure. But on a day of relief and joy, she just laughed and ruffled his hair.
This was smiley, sensitive Germany 2015, where for a while yesterday, hope conquered all. Volunteers at the station said they had been ‘overwhelmed’ with donations of toys, clothes and food.
Several thousand refugees arrived in Munich last night, accompanied by police. They were taken to schools and will be dispersed across Germany in the coming days. Around 10,000 mainly Syrian refugees are expected in total; while Austria expects a further 8,000. Half that number have already arrived, with Hungary taking some migrants across the border by bus.
One woman, Harriet Scrimgeour, 29, from North London, who witnessed the scenes unfolding at Munich station said she hoped they would be replicated in England over the coming weeks. ‘I like to think we would respond the same way, I’m sure we will,’ she said. ‘Britain is at its best in a crisis.’
Those who arrived in Munich had made perilous journeys through Greece and the Balkans to create a new life in Europe.
Hungarian authorities have refused to let migrants board trains to the west since Tuesday, compounding the build-up of people. The migrants refused to go to processing centres because they feared they would be deported or detained in Hungary indefinitely.
However, government officials changed their policy after becoming overwhelmed by the sheer numbers. On Friday, another 300 migrants escaped from a camp at Roszke on Hungary’s southern border with Serbia.
As migrants staggered into Austria at the border village of Nickelsdorf, they spoke of the
hatred they felt from Hungarians in the cesspit of Budapest’s Keleti station. ‘Never ever again will I set foot on Hungarian soil,’ wept one elderly man on crutches. ‘We’ve been kicked and beaten. Treated like dogs.’
By his side Mohammad Abbasi, a 25-year-old Masters graduate from Aleppo, Syria, brandished a piece of paper. ‘In Budapest there were crowds surrounding the station chanting: “Immigrants, go home. Get out, Arabs,” and spitting on us. They flung these disgusting leaflets at us.’
It said in English: ‘Are you a weapon or are you a victim? Have you escaped from a destroyed land, or are you destroying a land? Do you feel like a petted cat or a stray dog? THINK!!’
Some refugees had spent up to four nights in Keleti before a fleet of buses arrived in the station at 1am yesterday, heralding their longed-for exodus to Austria.
Once on board, they wondered if they had been duped once again. Three days earlier, a train they were told was headed for Austria had, instead, diverted to an overcrowded camp at Bicske, just 12 miles from Budapest. This time, however, the buses delivered their exhausted human cargo into the hands of the Austrian Red Cross. Many of the Hungarian mob who had taunted them were members of the far-Right party Jobbik, the country’s third largest with 20 per cent of the vote. The night before, hundreds of its members had chased after the families, many soaked and exhausted, as they set off on their 105-mile march to Austria, chanting: ‘We don’t want you, get out.’
As the exhausted refugees, carrying pitifully few possessions in carrier bags and shabby suitcases, slumped onto the welcoming sea of green camp beds, Laith Al Zoubi, 37, and his children, Omar, six, Luna, four, and Nuar, ten months, sat huddled together. ‘These are my motherless children,’ he said.
‘Their mother Batu died saving Luna when our house in Syria was bombed. Look at her legs,’ he says, pulling up her pink trousers to reveal deep scars and burns. ‘But in Hungary she was spat on and called “another stray dog”.’
Mohammed agreed: ‘All we wanted was a safe haven. What did we do to provoke this fury?’ This [in Austria] is what safety feels like. These are truly humanitarian people. The Hungarians don’t know what that means.’