It is difficult, here in the Czech Republic, to even ask the right questions about the refugee crisis, which began to really make news in the summer of 2015 when record numbers of people from Africa, the Middle East and other troubled regions began arriving on Europe’s shores. We are bombarded with fragments of information; action, pictures, and far too much fear. But for all the daily news footage, most of us still feel pretty bewildered about where to orientate ourselves in this ever-changing phenomenon. It is hard to find answers, or even put questions, about what this all means for our lives and futures. It feels much like living our lives in a bunker whilst the events happen in places just beyond our sight.
For this reason, Milk and Honey decided to take a trip to the Austrian border village of Sandl, just 70km away, which has been quietly housing a group of Syrian refugees since August 2015 and ask some questions to people more involved.
From Syria to Sandl
Irmgard and Peter kindly offered to make introductions. They are lifelong residents of Sandl and have been working with the refugees since they arrived last August. Sandl is a small village with a quiet atmosphere, lots of wide open fields, a small ski slope on the hill. It has that gothic font for street signs which always encapsulated Austria for me. It seems bizarre that the refugees should have ended up here, in a place so quintessentially Austrian and so far from the hub of world events. Why here, of all places?
Irmgard explains that Austria has a similar allocation system to Germany when it comes to accepting refugees. In Upper Austria, each town has to accept up to 5 percent of their population. Although here in Sandl it seems to have been more voluntary. A neighbour volunteered her empty property in return for government funds and the mayor approved it. “Volkshilfe”, a social institution and the Catholic Church promised to help and the Syrian refugees arrived; a family of four, and eight teenage boys. As Irmgard explains, it wasn’t a totally new experience for the community, having welcomed Bosnian refugees in the 90s. “Volkshilfe continues to send a social worker once a week to check on important things” she explains, “but otherwise it’s up to us”.
Life in the new world
I remember watching, last September, as the trails of refugees moved from the opened gates of Hungary to Austrian and German soil. On entry to Austria, the news abruptly stopped, like they had plopped into nothingness. I was curious to see what the much longer journey of integration looked like.
One would hope it looks much like the situation in Sandl. The refugees’ new home is a pretty family house with views of the mountains from all windows and a large garden. Peter and other volunteers have been harnessing the boys’ energy in the garden, making flower beds and slowly planting food for the coming summer. On commenting on the (somewhat tamed now) wild garlic sprouting in the garden we were given huge bags to take home with us by Hamze, one of the Syrian boys. This generosity is mirrored by that of Sandl’s villagers: local farmers bring round milk and eggs and every day a trolley in the local supermarket is filled with donated goods.
The community provides German lessons three times a week and a range of sports and leisure activities. The boys swim regularly and train with the village football team, as well as having a go at basketball, table tennis and even skiing. All of the Syrians loved their first experience of snow. There are also cultural days revolving around food and tradition swapping. Irmgard is enthusiastic about Syrian food “lots of new flavours, lots of lemon“. The Syrian boys are not so sure about Austrian cooking, as it’s very pork based, but have found a few familiar meals like kebab and falafel. The group, who were strangers to each other a few months ago, from varying parts of a large country and from different backgrounds now live, cook and wait together. It is obvious from the start that this situation would not be without its challenges.
Old and new problems
The first Syrians we met in Sandl were Esmaeel and his brother Mohamed, who live in a tiny room dominated by their beds and one table. In contrast to the communal family room downstairs, it felt somewhat stark and lonely and the boys seemed to have little to do but sleep. Any more abstract questions about what they think of Austria seemed out of place in this atmosphere of frustrated waiting. Esmaeel wants to continue his law studies in Linz, but without a passport can do nothing but sit and wait. His German is improving quickly though he is forgetting his English. His brother seems simply lost, not just in the German language, but in what the hell he is doing here in this strange room far from home.
Indeed, the German word the refugees all seemed very familiar with was “später“ (later on), which concludes almost every utterance about their future plans. At present, all the refugees are living in limbo but this situation is perhaps most damaging for the 5 teenage boys, too old to attend school like Rema and having left Syria before graduation.
Still, Irmgard is optimistic that the group will find work in nearby Freistadt or Linz, where there are steel industries recruiting manual workers. Rema’s father Abdulkada was a bus driver in Damascus and, on having his license transferred, hopes to continue driving. His son Hamze wants to work as a barber. Rema looks forward to the day she can have dogs again and maybe chickens. She seems excited about the life ahead in Austria and chats excitedly in German about her schoolfriends in Sandl.
A self-fulfilled prophecy
Our afternoon in Sandl is spent looking at iPhone photos of family gatherings in Damascan homes and waving grandchildren. There seems no need to ask why the family left Syria, that part of the puzzle seems clear enough. But I am interested in whether their experience mirrors what they expected of Austria, or if they expected anything at all. Interestingly, Abdulkada says his family chose Vienna at one of the frenzied turning points of their journey from Syria, via Greece and Turkey. He says they associate Austria with “shalom” – freedom, peace. The boys, teenagers, who mainly arrived alone, spoke of their horrible journeys and experiences of large camps in Traiskirchen and Vienna, where many of their friends are still stuck waiting. But they nod along with the word “shalom”.
It seems a very fortunate coincidence that they have travelled all the way from Damascus to this unknown Austrian village and found here some of this peace and freedom, when it is so lacking elsewhere in Europe. But it strikes me that without the efforts of Irmgard and her fellow volunteers, they would have arrived to a much less friendly new world, a different Austria entirely.
With Irmgard, Peter and their Syrian neighbours, we did not touch on many of the “big questions” which dominate the refugee debate in the Czech Republic, but we had a chance to observe one small community’s practical answer to a huge moral question. It is vital to ask big questions. But for those of us over the border in the Czech Republic, only ever asking them from the safety of our bunker seems unlikely to provide any answer worth having.
Natalie Czaban 
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