April 2022: A woman with four children speaks to a man in his forties. Just arrived from Ukraine, desperately looking for “Aldi?” or “Lidl?” – only so much can be understood. The man, called A. here, also fled, he came from Kabul via Iran in 2016, but has been living in town with his wife and children for two years. He knows that the discounters are not represented in Herrsching: “Rewe!” suggests A. as an alternative. Barely available German collides with minimal English. After a few gestural, wheel-breaking attempts at understanding, the asylum seeker sets off, the Ukrainian family in tow. The following tour, which lasts several hours, leads through various supermarkets, from Industriestraße to the train station, from there by bus to Lochschwab and to the quarter of the newcomers. A. walks back to town A., alone with an empty, clanking shopping trolley.
Magic words among strangers helping each other: “war”, “poor woman”, “hunger” and “Ukraine”
Twice before he had succeeded in softening strict German regulations in favor of war refugees with phrases like “war”, “poor woman”, “hunger” and “Ukraine”. First, when there was trouble at the supermarket checkout because a carton full of cooking oil bottles, 18 sacks of potatoes, 20 packets of potato dough or ten frozen chickens could be considered hamster purchases and are actually not permitted. And then – after various unsuccessful attempts to find a taxi – in the 921 bus, where the driver initially duly refuses to transport the group, including the shopping cart laden to the towering heights. The twenty or so carrier bags bought at the checkout were only enough to stow the other two shopping trolleys. The bus driver’s verbal attempts at explanation are only partially received: “I don’t understand anything, I’m a Serb”. And then he takes the whole group with him on the bus.
Thomas Prosperi puts his hand in the fire for the truthfulness of this story. Even when he repeats it, he still laughs the loudest. If only because the full-time cabaret artist and honorary language teacher knows As’s limited German vocabulary better than anyone else: the Afghan family man acquired his knowledge primarily in Prosperi’s courses at Herrsching’s “Blabla”.
The “Blabla” cafe on Bahnhofstrasse is open 24 hours a day
The intercultural meeting point on Bahnhofstrasse is open around the clock. This morning Herrschingerin Brigitte Borst taught two Ukrainians and one Afghan the German language. Johanna Neubauer-da Luz is just greeting one of the four young men she took in seven years ago. The brothers had been forced by their parents to flee Afghanistan; they are now orphans, both parents became seriously ill and died in their home country. The youngest son was twelve when he came to Herrsching in Neubauer’s care. Puberty, the loss of parents and getting used to a completely foreign culture: It was a difficult time for everyone, says Neubauer. Only two of the boys managed to graduate from school, “but now everyone has a job, so I’m very happy.” If you want to find out more about this, you should listen to the radio podcast “Johanna and the five brothers from Afghanistan” on the Internet.
In the intercultural meeting place “Blabla” the Ukrainians Lina Solokhova and Tina Rosovska learn German with Brigitte Borst (left).
(Photo: Arlet Ulfers/Arlet Ulfers)
About 50 refugees come more or less regularly to Blabla. Since the outbreak of the war, almost a dozen Ukrainians have joined, and about twice as many are connected to the Herrsching helpers via social media. The house is open to everyone on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons, on Friday mornings the meeting place is reserved for women alone, and there is a painting and handicrafts workshop for children once a month. Otherwise, the sponsoring association “We can do it” organizes tutoring, language and computer courses there.
In addition, members of the association offer support in dealing with authorities or in filling out forms and try to find apartments, jobs or therapy places. And sometimes in acute emergencies they also provide first aid in a bureaucratic sense. Just like recently, when a refugee from Iraq was threatened with immediate loss of his job at the Starnberg Clinic: His tolerance to stay had expired, he had not extended his residence permit in time because the district office had accidentally set the date for a public holiday. The dismissal was averted at the last moment with a few phone calls, reports Silvana Prosperi, who, like her husband, is involved in “We can do it”.
The “Week of Tolerance” has developed into a regular Sunday get-together for asylum seekers
There are many reasons why the Herrschinger association can still successfully carry out integration work seven years after the historic opening of the border and despite all pandemic restrictions. Even before the district’s first container village was ready for occupancy in autumn 2015, Neubauer contacted the refugees in the Weßlingen gymnasium. She wanted to persuade those who had just arrived to take part in the multicultural cultural program that Neubauer organized for Herrsching’s “Week of Tolerance”. From this, a regular Sunday meeting of asylum seekers with citizens developed in the “Herrschinger Insel”. As early as April 2016, the first Café Blabla moved into what was then the wide-screen cinema and enriched the cultural life of the community there with festivals, exhibitions and concerts. After the cinema closed, they were accommodated temporarily in the BRK home on Ceramic Street.
At the beginning of 2020, the cute little house at Bahnhofstraße 23 could be occupied, “by the way, the first blue house in Herrsching”, as Neubauer emphasizes with a laugh. When the move-in was to be celebrated with a cultural program on March 13, Corona intervened. After a long break, the time has finally come: On Sunday, July 3rd, there will be another intercultural blabla festival – not in the backyard on Bahnhofstraße, but in the much more lavish setting of the Kurparkschlösschen, where the first welcome party was held in 2015 took place. Municipality and cultural association Herrsching make it available from 5 p.m. In the villa or on a stage, the Express Brass Band to play. Since it was founded in 1999, the Munich collective has dedicated itself to a mixture of Afrobeat Fela Kutis, jazz Sun Ras and des Art Ensembles of Chicago as well as the world music of the group embryo prescribed. Comedian and poetry slammer Hani Who is also expected: the native Afghan grew up in Iran and has lived in Germany since 2010. The Herrschinger percussionist and horn player Ludwig Himpsl (Unterbiberger Hofmusik, Bavaschôro) performs with the Syrian oud master Abathar Kmash. In addition, shorter guest performances are guitareros and the Dießen oud player Refaat, Silvana and Thomas Prosperi alias will be the moderators Faltsch Wagoni. And of course, as before at the legendary blabla festivals in the cinema, a colourful, diverse buffet with international specialties will be served.
In the Kurparkschlösschen, the association “We can do it” is celebrating the first international cultural festival since the outbreak of the 2020 pandemic
(Photo: Georgine Treybal)
“Culture has been neglected overall in the last two and a half years, but so has the exchange between people, which is so important,” says Silvana Prosperi. The exchange between those who fled years ago and the newcomers from the Ukraine has already started in Herrsching: For example, as part of the women’s project “Life Reality in Bavaria”, which the Free State supports as one of 18 nationwide integration initiatives. Family trips to Bernd Zimmer’s “Stoa 169” art project near Polling or a hike from Widdersberg to Seefeld took place. “I have seldom met such sad people as those who fled Ukraine,” says Silvana Prosperi. But the idea that the husbands of the Ukrainian women are not allowed to leave their home country was also appalling for the Afghan women.
Some Syrians, Afghans or Eritreans feel like second-class refugees when faced with the new arrivals from Ukraine
Is the episode with the still quite strange tourist guide A. representative of how the refugees of 2015/2016 dealt with those of the expellees of 2022? She has also heard that some Syrians, Afghans or Eritreans in Germany felt a little like second-class asylum seekers given the new welcoming culture. “Some doors are opened more quickly for Ukrainians,” but Silvana Prosperi can only rate this positively: “It’s good to see that people are still willing to help. And it’s our job here not to let any differences arise.” There is, of course, a fundamental difference between the two groups of refugees: most people from Ukraine don’t want to stay here permanently: “The first four already have plans to go back soon,” says Prosperi.
Her husband can add one last point to As Odyssey with the Ukrainian family: Of course, the Ukrainian women were very grateful for his help and didn’t want to be stingy in Lochschwab. They offered their companion tea or coffee, pastries and more. But A. had to decline: It was Ramadan.