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An Ausländer's View of the European Refugee Crisis

Sean Gallup
/
Getty Images
Three migrants from Afghanistan walk along the A3 highway shortly after they crossed from Austria into Germany in the early hours. Record numbers of migrants have fled from war torn areas into Europe this past year.

The humanitarian crisis in Europe continues to deepen, as stories emerge each day of migrants dying or barely surviving their journeys from war-torn countries in the Middle East and Africa. Some of those refugees have settled in Austria, where they have received a mixed welcome. Lake Effect essayist Kirsten Wisniewski has also recently resettled in Austria. But coming from Milwaukee, via London, she has a different view of the experience:

I’ve been back in Austria for 24 hours. I’m finally home.

So I’m at the Hauptbahnhof in Vienna having just purchased some shampoo and Snyder’s of Hanover Honey Mustard and Onion Pretzel Pieces. The former I needed after ditching my other shampoo before I left London, since EasyJet is strict on weight and I was NOT trying to buy extra kilos.

Anyway, I’m looking for a place to eat my little snack, the VERY BEST of all the snacks one can buy for a train, and I stumble upon an interesting sight. In the main waiting area under the platforms, in front of a mural proclaiming the need for peace and an end to war everywhere, there was a long table filled with food and bottled water. On the end were stacks and stacks of basic items like packs of new socks and underwear. Behind all the tables are young people handing these goods out, and behind them are signs saying that all refugees were welcome, and that the food, water, and staple items were free.

They are handing these things out to seemingly anyone who passes the table, and the area is filled with people speaking many different languages. I can’t say who might have qualified as a refugee or not; I don’t feel like guessing purely based on clothing or the amount of luggage they have with them. But I know that there are refugees in the crowd, because there are well-dressed Austrians of various ethnicities handing out pamphlets about refugee services and packets explaining the asylum process. I can only guess that all of this is in response to recent events near the Hungarian border. Events that happened while I was still in England planning my return to Austria. But seeing this made me optimistic.

There is a lot of casual racism in Austria. In parts of Austria there is overt racism. There's a political party with a lot of support that is specifically anti-immigrant. So seeing these Austrians, even this small group, reaching out and sending the international arrivals in Vienna the message that they are welcome, gave me a lot of hope.

Because race and immigration issues are talked about so much more openly in America than they are in Austria, it’s easy for me to start forgetting that there are significant problems here too, both on an institutional level and an interpersonal level.

Credit Kirsten Wisniewski

I’m an Ausländer, a foreigner. But a lot of Austrians either don’t realize or don’t care. Because I look like a typical Austrian, and because I speak German, I fly under the radar pretty well. If I’m questioned, most people assume I’m just German. People are nice to me. If they find out that I’m not Austrian, I'm a fun novelty. A random American in some rural town who speaks German and understands their fun dialect and comes to their cultural events. Most Austrians like me. I’ve gotten free bus rides, people bend rules for me, and, inexplicably, people keep giving me candy. My experience as a foreigner is, unfortunately, not typical.

Friends of mine who don’t speak German well, or who are people of color (regardless of how well they speak German) do not have it so easy. They tell stories about being singled out or of having their work status or language abilities questioned by Austrians. Austrians have not always been nice to them. Refugees are not allowed to work, which just contributes to the idea that people have that refugees are just sponging off the system or being lazy.

I know that I am a lucky Ausländer. I know that getting here was far easier for me than it is for most people. I know that the fact that I am here on a work visa, instead of a visa that keeps me from working puts me in an advantaged position. I know that I am lucky that I “pass” as part of mainstream Austrian culture. I know these things. And it is devastating that not only does not everyone get these privileges, but that so many suffer so greatly in an effort to get half of what I was practically given.

So when a discussion is opened up about the current refugee policy on both the EU level and Austrian federal level, and when I see things like a makeshift refugee services stand in the tunnels under the Vienna Hauptbahnhof, and I see Austrians who had nothing to do with the recent tragedies doing something to help even just a few refugees, it makes me glad to be in a country that isn’t perfect, by any means, but which is really going to try.

Lake Effect essayist Kirsten Wisniewski is a Milwaukee native who now teaches English in Villach, Austria, through the Fulbright Commission and the Austrian-American Education Commission.