Another heartwarming story

I've just finished reading a book written by the two founders of the 'Miniatur Wunderland', the world's largest model railway whicb is set in Hamburg. The founders are twin brothers (aged 50) ho seem to have had a very unconventional childhood, grew up in a shared up apartment where everybody educated the kids etc. And they also seem to be quite altruistic, trying to make the world a better place.
Anyway, they opened this model railway (which is absolutely awesome) in 2001 and it now has more than 1 million visitors per year and is the main attraction in Hamburg and one of the top attractions in Germany as well.

When the Haiti earthquake happened in 2010, they were both shocked because they had been there and had made friends there. So they thought about how to raise money and decided to auction rights to name certain attractions on their model railway. Thereby and also by organizing an event, they made lots of money to build up a school in Haiti.
Ever from their start, they invited kindergarden groups to visit their exhibition for free in December every year. They first wanted to limit this on kindergardens from poorer areas of Hamburg but idn't want to set up a certain label 'This area is poor, that isn't', and there are also kids who go to kindergardens in other areas of the city. So now, every kindergarden who wants to, can visit the exhibition for free (and those who like it and tell their parents and grandparents bout it, will re-visit the exhibition with their families if they can afford the entrance fee).

On christmas eve 2014, one of the brothers went to a church service and all the kids got some chocolate. Since his twins (yes, he has twins as well) were just six months old, he gave the chocolate to a poor Romanies family at the street and was embarrassed by the fact how happy these kids were to get this cheap present. He thought about it all night and called his brother the next day. They decided something very special:
January is always a quite lazy month for them with less visitors. So they chose 14 work days in January and said that everybody who said at the entrance: "I can't afford to pay the entrance fee" would be allowed to enter for free, no prove, no excuse. Which certainly means that there are people who are obviously taking advantage of their altruism.
But they said that the very first day, somebody from their staff came along with tears in her eyes and told them that she had just met a mother with her som. The mother said that her son's only wish for christmas was a visit to the model railway, but she couldn't afford it and had to put him off. When the staff lady told them that they could visit the exhibition, both mother and son started to cry, and so did the staff lady...

They have done it ever since, every January. In 2017, the medias found out about that and reported about it. Some pointed out that refugees would also benefit from it, and suddenly they were in the middle of a shit storm. They were attacked heavily, although they simply didn't exclude anybody. They didn't ask for their bank account to check if they really didn't have any money and didn't ask for their nationality. Everybody is allowed to visit it for free, no excuse.

But they said that they will continue doing this, and I decided to visit it with my family when we-re there the next time (we visited it once, nearly ten years ago).

Heartwarming and so good to hear.

Unfortunately some wreck itt for others - there is a very well documented story of a famly of refugees from Syria who were taken in, fed, watered and housed annd educated and given an income in a town in Lithuania. However they complained that it wasn't where they wanted to be or what they wanted!

Understandably they were told that it was really nice in comparison with what they had gone through but still they complained and within days they had disappeared into the night - as did many others. Everybody who had helped them settle in felt very depressed given they did absolutely everything they could want.

Not quite so heartwarming...............

Btw it's amazin ....

Bravi!!!!

party animal - not! wrote:Heartwarming and so good to hear.

Unfortunately some wreck itt for others - there is a very well documented story of a famly of refugees from Syria who were taken in, fed, watered and housed annd educated and given an income in a town in Lithuania. However they complained that it wasn't where they wanted to be or what they wanted!

Understandably they were told that it was really nice in comparison with what they had gone through but still they complained and within days they had disappeared into the night - as did many others. Everybody who had helped them settle in felt very depressed given they did absolutely everything they could want.

Not quite so heartwarming...............

Sad

Really not grate full

But probably they won't be ever happy
Nowhere

PAN,
that sounds sad, but maybe it's me is right with assuming that they might never be happy.
My husband told me that this happened quite often at tge beginning whdn we had lots of refugees and people from our small town who supported and helped them like my husband. And quite a few disappeared to bigger cities or other countries or simply left, leaving the volunteers disappointed. Some wanted to rejoin with friends or family members who lived somewhere else, others simply wanted to live in a big city where people from the Middle East or from Africa are more 'normal' and don't get as much attention as in my small town and where it's easier to get halal meat - here the next shop offering this meat is more than 20 miles away, and so are the authorities they need to visit regularly. My best friend works as a teacher in a small village in the mountains, and last year some young people from Syria came to the school and asked if they could join the classes to learn German. She refused it and said that it's an elementary school, and they told her that they were already were waiting nearly one year to be told where to learn German. And the language classes are in the next bigger town, reachable for them only by bus which only runs three times a day. Six weeks later, they had left, just before the local priest decided to teach refugees German.

In February, ona freezing cold day with lots of snow, my husband was about to leave his office for lunch (he's a registrar, working in a nearly 1,000 years old former emporer's palace) and saw a couple with a very young baby waiting outside. He asked them if he could help, and they said that they had an appointment at his office at 3 p.m. because they needed certain documents for their five days old baby (it had been born in that town so it was my husband's job to give them these documents). My husband went back to his office with them, and they told him that they live in a very small village with one bus leaving and returning per day. So they had left the village at 7 a.m. and were waiting ever since, since the only bus returning was running at 6 p.m., they weren't that much in a hurry... And the previous day, they had also spent in town because they had an appointment at the Aliens Department, and having a newborn baby was no excuse.
My husband did all the paperwork they needed and then drove them home because he felt horrible thinking that they had to spend two full days in town without a chance to rest or put their baby to sleep (it slept in their arms though), and the mother had had a caesarean which usually means that you should be up in the cold outside less than a week after.
I can't imagine that they stayed in the village for a very long time.

Which of course may be different from the Syrian family in Lithuania...

how many sad stories we never know?

I guess there are as many reasons for moving to another place as there are people. As you all said, often it's for convenience or to be closer to family or people who share your culture.

Some people will never appreciate the help they're given - and some people will resent any help given to strangers even if it has nothing to do with them and they wouldn't be interested anyway - they just don't want anyone else helped.

The one thing I know is that if you decide to help someone, do it because it's the right thing to do - not because you want thanks or recognition.

Mm, well the impression you get from this particular example turns out to be not uncommon and to many seems to smack of ingratitude and to some, arrogance too. Not a great impression given how much was and is being given in help.


Turns out that word got out amongst many that the best offers of benefits and accommodation came from Germany and people moved on from other countries who were not offering so much.
Tragic for other countries who had gone out of their way to help.......and unfortunate that there wasn't more co-ordination between European countries who knew as long ago as 2011 what was happening on their borders.....

PAN - I don't think we've evolved enough to work together on anything for any length of time. Sooner or later, whether it be on a personal or national level, it comes down to the fear that somehow we're not getting "our fair share". We get upset that some stranger might be getting something we don't have (and probably don't need or want). All our basest instincts come to the forefront. It's only when we ourselves need help that we expect charity and compassion to rule.

I know this isn't true for everyone, but there are enough rotten apples to spoil everything for us all. (Just look at what's happening in the US right now.) I believe that we were put here as stewards to care for each other and the earth. We are failing miserably at both.

PAN,
it's really frightening me that all our politicians in the EU don't seem to meet to discuss what can really be done to help immigrants / refugees / people without a perspective due to their broke country. 
We are trying to protect our borders to stop them, but we don't fight the reasons for their countries' bankrupty. There are several countries in the EU who refuse to take just the very few refugees they are supposed to take. They imprison them in camps and say the rest of the EU should thank them for stopping refugees to enter the EU. The EU pays billions toTurkey for doing exactly that and pays billions as well to Libya for keeping them in camps where refugees are blackmailed, enslaved, raped and murdered. We accuse seamen and ship's crews for saving peoples' lives instead of thanking them and block ports so refugees can't reach land.

Our ancestors in Europe and the States have occupied these countries, exploited their natural reyources and enslaved their population for centuries. Generations of them wrre not allowed to go to school and weren't treated as human beings. When they became independent, we tried to influence their elections and dispossessed their governments, supported politicians we were able to manipulate and destabilized their economies to benefit from it and install our own companies etc.

And we still don't act in a much better way. The US have caused wars and started putsches in the Middle East since the end of WW II, starting with the Iran to have access to their oil. The civil wars, ISIS and conflicts we have in this area now are results of these politics, but the refugees don't come to the States because the Atlantic Ocean is too large to cross. Instead, they enter instable nutshells of boats to criss the Mediterranean Sea because that's the only way.

No, I'm not happy with this politics.

LizzyNY wrote:PAN - I don't think we've evolved enough to work together on anything for any length of time. Sooner or later, whether it be on a personal or national level, it comes down to the fear that somehow we're not getting "our fair share". We get upset that some stranger might be getting something we don't have (and probably don't need or want). All our basest instincts come to the forefront. It's only when we ourselves need help that we expect charity and compassion to rule.

I know this isn't true for everyone, but there are enough rotten apples to spoil everything for us all. (Just look at what's happening in the US right now.) I believe that we were put here as stewards to care for each other and the earth. We are failing miserably at both.

Lizzy,
I've just read something on pinterest I really liked:
'Of course immigrants take our jobs. But if someone wiho speaks no German, has no working skills and no influence, gets your job, you should maybe think about your own job perspective...'

Carolhathaway - I saw something similar on Daily Kos a while back and it made me laugh. So many of the people who are afraid of immigrants taking what they have, have nothing to take! They have minimal education, no job skills or desire to get any, and aren't willing to work at the jobs they are qualified for because it's beneath them. I think the real problem is that the immigrants are smarter, work harder at any job they can get, and make them look bad.