Interview with Jale Değirmenci and Özcan Mutlu about: Refugees, Hosting and Their lives in Berlin

City 54 Hotel in Berlin was just a hostel for students until 1994. Because of Yugoslav war and German government’s obligations, City 54 transformed their work mentality from hostel to a refugee dorm for the ones who survived from Yugoslav war. This period continued until 2007, so after that time they returned to their old system. When the year 2013 came, their door knocked again by municipality for a new refugee crew: Syrians.

Before explaining our meeting, we should know one part of German’s law system. Actually all this subject starts in their law. They have a strict law clause, 16th, which declares that they should protect and host all the refugees who is in danger of life. Regarding their system, they became the most suitable country in Europe. Now there are 1.5 million refugees in Germany and it’s not an easy work to organize, integrate all, and also build a home for all of them. That’s why when German government couldn’t find a place to host all of the refugees, they compromise with school gyms, hotels and hostels like City 54. Now you can find buildings who works for refugee hosting in every district of Berlin.

More than a hotel: City 54

City 54 is in Mitte and run by Jale Değirmenci. Building’s capacity is 170 room and 440 persons. All of their customers are refugees, and most of them are families. 210 of 440 customers are children between the age of 0-18. They are going to schools, kindergartens. We learned from hostels employee that schools have “welcoming” classes for refugees which they can be educate in German. Also their parents get language education in German language courses. Refugees stay in rooms like mini apartments, they have their own bathroom and a little unit of kitchen to cook whatever they want. At the beginning, there were 200 refugees and then it increased to 440, 700. Now the last number is same with the hostels capacity. They are all refugees, most of them are Syrians but there are some other nationalities too. Hostel has 6 building and a yard for the use of common area in the middle of all the structure. Also they have a seminar room and a room for children which includes toys and a nanny in it. Parents can leave their children to those nannies for permanent out going works like bureaucratic procedures.

Jale Değirmenci says that there are psychologists who works with them because of refugees post war trauma. Some of these refugees knows nothing about European culture, so psychologist can be helpful for their integration process to Berlin. One of their problem is adaptation. Hotel’s owner Mrs. Değirmenci adds that they observe lots of violence inside of the families, men who ties their wife’s to wardrobe handle’s when he’s leaving the room…

For blocking this kind of cases, they are taking precautions; for example, they have a group of woman worker who professionalised on their social life; every day this group make visits to all the rooms for having an interaction with women, for control them. They speak Arabic, German, Turkish with them. Sometimes refugees hide their illnesses (an illness called manginess) or they weren’t sending their children to school.

%80 of the refugees who stay are the same ones since 2013, some of them found houses but most of them don’t need any other place. Refugees learns another routine in this hotel and they try to get used to German life because of Mrs. Değirmenci and her employees help. But this is an exceptional situation because in the refugee camps, they just make them rest in the gymnasium without any cultural education but language.

As she is interested in refugee’s interaction since 1995 with immigration of Yugoslavia, she said: “They were much more familiar with routine but those who come from east, they have totally different culture. So its much harder for them. But they work hard to stay here. Now, a refugee learns German in 6 months which is really difficult to do it”.

We talked about the first situation in 60’s. As the first comers from Turkey thought that they will return after a few years, they didn’t want to learn German language. Thus their interaction with German people was different, they created Turkish neighborhood to survive in Turkish. They could live there without knowing any German letter because they had their own doctors, supermarkets, barber shops etc…

Indeed, the interaction between Germans and Turks still succeeds through years. For example, they established a Turkish University in Germany, they got politicians who keeps the rights of immigrants. Here Mr. Mutlu says that he is trying to build a bridge among Germany and immigrants.

Here, the government has a system for those who immigrates. We learnt that Berlin major separates the new comers region by region regarding their birth date([1]) in order to they harmonize much more properly. There are some schools which they can learn German and get a certificate to get a job. Mr. Mutlu says that the government reserves 650 million euro for the education courses of immigrants.

The government acts in view of the fact that the immigrants have different cultures. To illustrate, they prepare special classes just for women. In addition, at the hotel, they handle with same application. For example, some of Syrians don't let their wife educate. At this moment, Jale Değirmenci and her team convince him and to solve the problem. She says: “As they are muslim also, they feel much more close to us”. In some cases, wife don't tell that she is being beaten by her husband because polices take aggressive husbands away to keep women safe. So Jale and her team help them to fix the family issues. Also they try to respect the private life. Due to broadness of hotel, they can learn German and live here without going outside, that’s another ease for them.

Getting more information about refugees in Germany from an old politician: Özcan Mutlu

“This is not the first refugee flow in recent German history” says Mr. Mutlu. Like we said in the beginning, Germany lived a similar scenario with Yugoslav war refugees. Mr. Mutlu claims that Germany took much bigger responsibility than other European countries because of one of their basic law code. This famous law clause, the 16th, added because of the jewish genocide, and include the ones who have a life danger, or have been in a war. It also includes the refugees who have been discriminated religiously, culturally, etc. They have special rights in Germany, that why they are coming in German. Although Germany make changes in the clause for limiting the refugees, it is still the best one Europe’s have.

“When other EU countries shutting down the borders, Germany opened it.”

It’s not easy to adapt 1.5 million people in two years but Germany mostly accomplished this process, says Mr. Mutlu and make citation from Merkel’s famous quote “We can do it”. He explained us how refugees can take their family members with them self and the growing interest to racist party AfD in Germany. Before AfD’s policy was about getting out of Euro based money system but after refugees, they transformed their policies more about to boohooing the refugees. Their statements are all about kicking out refugees and Islam from Europe. Özcan Mutlu thinks that we can clearly see racism is still living on some people’s mind.

He thinks that Merkel didn’t do enough organization in the political area. Adapting people, giving education, etc. needs a lot of domain and plan not all places work like Mrs. Değirmenci. He says that Germany didn’t had enough organization that’s why refugees collapsed in small villages, so the racism increased little by little. Contrary to this negative side, there are only two bad accidents: One is the terrorist who killed 11 people last year in Köln, and the other one is the refugees who made physical harassment to German women in New Years eve. Apart from these two bad incident, Germany is doing really well.

“Harassment isn’t that unusual but media abused this case. White Germans do harassments too but they never write them in that way; we don’t even know the number of harassments or rapes happened in October Fests…”

Also positive changes happen a lot. Germany made an impact about working area and professions. For example, if a refugee had a documented profession in his/her country, they can continue doing their job in Germany, and if they don’t, they will be educated in some profession courses.

Actually Germany can easily transform this process to their benefit if refugees become well educated. Because Germany’s retirement fund won’t be enough for future. Their population is getting older, so Syrian refugees can bring a new breath to their economy. Mr. Mutlu says that statically now in Germany, two workers support one retired person.

Racism and Its Effects

When the subject comes to the racism Jale Değirmenci says: “We take precautions, but racism is a fact and it’s around the world. We have to make empathy, naturally a Syrian refugee gets a grant for clothing and nutrition from government, at least lives in a warm place. Indeed, there is solidarity among them which help them to survive. So there is also Germans who can’t find a job and tries to survive with a few budget that given by the government. They can take it like something unjust”. Mr. Mutlu adds: “This situation stimulates the racism. For example, on Facebook there were news that they have given a card that allows to go brothel. We can say that this is nonsense and fake news but lots of German believed it, and they made propaganda”.

The hotel is also careful about disturbing citizens. She said: “Previously immigrants were eating sunflower seed and they fling it into ground. It’s scary for German citizens. They fear of them and cross the street. Thereby we take precautions and we tell them that to do it at least at the hotel. Please don't do that on the street. When they are all together, citizens fear of them. But that’s the case: People are afraid of what they do not know. That’s why we try to be balanced.”

Mr. Mutlu says that: “Germany and Turkey has a historical co-work. But we are living the coldest days of this relation due to the anti-democratically acts of Turkish Government beginning with Deniz Yücel. There are 9 German journalist in prison at Turkey and 20-25 German have international travel ban from Turkish Government so they can’t leave the country. We try to build a bridge in despite of comply theorist like Yiğit Bulut and Melih Gökçek. They say like German Government wants to pull down the country. That’s ridiculous”. Turkish or German Depute?

We talked also about his political feeling (Turkish or German): “When I was running for the first time, on my campaign poster there was a bilingual saying in German and Turkish. Some racist groups destroyed my campaign poster. I always understand myself as a bridge builder, I feel both. The question can be “how do they see you, my German colleagues?” In their eyes I am still the Turkish guy, but that’s ridiculous because Turks cannot vote unless they have a citizenship. Last summer there was a debate in the Bundestag about dual citizenship and I was one of the speakers and I am well-known as the critics of Erdoğan. My German colleague from Christian Democratic Union stood up and said: “Mr. Mutlu you and your president Erdoğan!” I have only German citizenship and unfortunately the president of assembly interrupted and he said: “Please apologize because he is a part of German Parliament”. But I understood again you do whatever you want, you are still the Turkish guy. That is the problem, the racist approach. Mesut Özil for example. He is really famous and plays for national soccer team but he is still the Turkish guy. Before the games when there is national anthem, he doesn’t sing it. But he is not the only one who don't sing, even Germans. In contrast, German newspaper writes down that he didn’t sing the national anthem. Another example is Fatih Akın. He had lots of prices around the world but he is taking them for Germany but he is still the Turkish guy. That’s something that we can’t change. Maybe there is always a core racism in the back of many Germans. My father lives here for 50 years and he doesn't have right to vote. As long as you don't have right to vote, politicians tend to separate you. Therefore, I always believe that citizenship and right to vote are very crucial for integration”.

To conclude, as we see here, the situations of refugees are getting better in years. People like Mr. Mutlu and Mrs. Değirmenci are playing a key role in this structure. With government’s encouragement, the interaction between immigrants and Germans can evolve through periods.

[1] In east, those have problems with registration, they write down January 1st to the identity card without knowing the real birth date. So there are lots of immigrant at Mitte.