interview
Status: 07/25/2021 01:06 p.m.
Insulted, disabled, thrown at: What happens to some THW helpers in the flood areas makes you angry, according to THW Vice Lackner in an interview. The behavior of some interferers also triggers a defiant reaction among their colleagues on site.
ARD: Ms. Lackner, the THW has been on the road with thousands of helpers in the flood crisis area in Rhineland-Palatinate for over a week. In the past few days, helpers have been attacked directly – what exactly happened?
Sabine Lackner: THW emergency services were initially approached and unsettled at different locations. Emergency services were filmed without being asked. We then advised them to remove the identifier from their clothing.
Rubbish and stones were thrown at helpers elsewhere. I don’t want to go into further detail about the locations. We also notice that we get reactions on the Internet that I speak about it so openly.
And I don’t want anything to happen – regardless of which volunteer from any organization or even voluntary spontaneous helpers. We are here for the affected population.
To person
Sabine Lackner has been working full-time at THW since 2001. Among other things, she was responsible for the area of foreign projects and as a department head for the area of training. In 2020 she became the first woman to become Vice President of the Technical Relief Organization.
ARD: Were helpers injured?
Lackner: There were no injuries that required medical attention.
ARD: How do the helpers react to these attacks?
Lackner: We are in very close contact with our emergency services. And the moment we recognize uncertainties or when the emergency services say it is getting too sensitive for us, we would immediately take them out of this situation.
We do experience, however, that the helpers say a little “now more than ever!”, “We are not intimidated here, the people need us, that is very important to us here.”
But they also know that we are always watching everything in the background. And as soon as we find out that there are “troublemakers” – that’s what I want to call it – we inform the police, who also show an increased presence. So everyone still feels safe, we haven’t had to interrupt or break off an assignment yet.
Clearing up debt and the fear of new rain
Lucretia Gather, SWR, daily topics 11:15 p.m., 7/24/2021
ARD: Do you know anything about the background to these attacks? Some of them are supposed to come from the so-called lateral thinking scene.
Lackner: We have knowledge about this, but I don’t want to comment on it any further. Because I don’t want to give you the opportunity to position yourself or to draw conclusions for further actions.
ARD: Does this hostility make you and the helpers angry? How do you feel?
Lackner: Yes, it makes you angry, but it also triggers a defiant reaction. You can’t get us out of here and you can’t hold us down either! We are here for the people who have partially lost everything.
I was in different communities, I was in Bad Neuenahr at the bridge, where the THW makes a ferry connection for the population, because only one bridge still exists. So that people can get from A to B quickly. That makes me proud, we are doing something for the population. And that there are some troublemakers trying to dissuade us or maybe even make politics, at the moment our people say, “We don’t care.”