ON the safety rail of a flyover in Ottobrunn, a suburb in east Munich, there is a sign that reads: Refugees welcome.

It is close to a disused airstrip where hundreds of migrants are now stationed.

No doubt the person who hung up the sign wanted the migrants to read it, if they could, before they made their final run to the nearby camp.

The camp itself is makeshift.

Tents and provisional beds and portable catering equipment for the provision of food.

It is like many that have been hastily organised in the wake of the migrant crisis.

Equidistant from Munich in another area, the tiny hamlet of Keferloh, the local indoor tennis courts house hundreds more.

Images of the masses have seemed to dominate. Stretches of the Hungarian border where desperate masses have come up against police with implacable faces.

And then the train stations of big cities: Vienna and, most notably, Rosenheim and Munich in Bavaria in southern Germany.

The migrants disembark at these points in Germany and once again they make the headlines with photos of thousands making their way along platforms.

Their arrival has given rise to significant questions.

How can the EU cope? How can so many people be absorbed?

Where can we find the housing?

As the questions fly there is the impression that the migration crisis has descended into freefall and that the sheer numbers have led to a dysfunctional situation throughout the migrant routes and in all the migrant hotspots along the way.

Far from this big news, in suburbs and villages, local volunteers are at work.

In one school, near the camp in Ottobrun, teachers are providing opportunities to help in practical ways.

Pupils can bring in new socks and underwear that will later be given out. In the context of the big news they are small initiatives.

And yet these candles of hope in a dark crisis, small things done by ordinary people giving up their free time who have responded with dignity and resolve to an extraordinary challenge hold up a much needed light.

Outside the entrenched political positions, the fear that Europe cannot cope and cannot manage its borders, that divisions will worsen as the debate about how to manage the situation continues, there is hope in the suburbs.

VERNON LACEY
Former Warrington man now living in Munich

 

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