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Published: April 1st 2016
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I arrived in Vienna on March 8th with the intension of reaching the War Refugee Camp at Linz, a northern city in Austria. Shortly after my arrival I learned that anther camp an hour south of Vienna in the town of Traiskirchen ( Trais-kir-chen), meaning 3 churches in Dutch, which has actually outnumbered Linz in housing the refugees and it is now the main camp and it is housing 2,600 people. The camp however, is equipped with a kitchen and food distribution facilities intended for no more than half that figure and is a challenging task, but staff and management in Traiskirchen are slowly figuring out how to deal with the notoriously overcrowded camp. I must say that after visiting the camp I was surprised that the situation overall was not as bad as I had seen on the reports before. The setup consists of a few well structured old buildings housing 4 to 8 people per room and the make shift tents to provide secondary services such as medical.
My attempt of finding a place to stay around the camp has been fruitless as the town of Traiskirchen is mostly a ghost town of no accommodations. So I stay
at a youth hostel in Vienna and commute an hour train ride back and forth to the camp a few times a week to meet with my groups. This also give me an opportunity to explore Vienna which simply is a beautiful and highly cultured town. Patience is the key for those waiting in long list of Displaced People (DP) that extends from 3 to 6 months to receive an Austrian White-Card, the equivalent of the US Green-Card at Austria's biggest reception center for migrants and asylum-seekers.
Since pork is shunned by the mostly Muslim residence of the camp, and beef is scarce, chicken and rice are on the menu most of the time. Food has been low on the government's priority list. In July, when an unprecedented number of asylum-seekers reached Austria, about 4,600 people were living inside the reception center in Traiskirchen. There were people sleeping outside in the open. Hundreds of children, women and men slept on the bare ground, unsheltered from rain and cold. But the situation seem to be improving as long as the new wave of refugees does not derail the progress. They do not welcome media here and photography is not allowed
as there are security cameras everywhere.
Among the current residence in the camp there are about 40 to 50 Iranians which I met with a group of them in my first visit of the camp. Among them, Kazem, a 27 year old man with an interesting saga, he has escaped Iran with a fake purchased French passport. He says the main purpose behind his escape was mostly to fight off his Opium addiction. His logic which has been successful for him is that if he ended up somewhere where obtaining the drug would be virtually impossible he will be forced to kick his addiction. He has been at the camp for about six months and he is clean and he doesn't seem to care about anything else! He's been here longer than usual mostly because he is single and not on any priority list. Strangely, the director of the whole camp here in Traiskirchen is also an Iranian man by the name of Mr. Pouya who seem to be a ghosty figure since my attempts in setting up a meeting with him and his office has been unsuccessful so far. Apparently he is an Iranian-Austrian who works under the
ministry of interior which runs a very bureaucratic system at the camp that is hard to crack. His office constantly blocks and for varieties of excuses undermine my request of visiting with him. I have however managed to meet with two different groups of Iranian refugees 10 to 15 in each group. We meet two to there times a week to brainstorm and talk about their concerns and problems. The stories they share in dispair is also the story of hope and survivorship and points to the magnificent human mind-power they possess to reach out and creatively change their path in search of a greener pasture and road to happiness, however illusive and fantom-like they may appear in the eyes of the rest of us who take life for granted in the West. Some hope to find a new home in Austria as their final destination and some still hoping to move on to places like Canada or Australia in search of a better life.
It is interesting that not many even talk about coming to US and that is mostly because humanitarian ideals and social safety nets in US is shaky and superficial compared to the rest of
the world and this has become known among the refugees. They think US policies are all about the rhetorics and life in America is much harder for a beginner than it is in Europe. The number of refugees accepted by the US, per capita, falls shamefully short of a country of this magnitude. Over 300 million people country compared to a 10 million people nation of Austria. Particularly when it is known that what has caused this stampede and chaos centered by the Syrian Civil War was mainly triggered by the US invasion of Iraq to begin with, which destabilized the region and the central chore of the Middle East, which opened the doors for the influx of the fundamentalist fractions like ISIS to become powerful and spread their wings all over now, much like the US creation of Al Qaeda, Tailbones and the rest. The United States of America is now overtly seen as The Military Industrial Complex runaway machine that has no choice but to feed off of the global connflicts, while tooting the horn of fantom democracy.
At the refugee camp some have to fight homelessness within homelessness inside the camp. Amnesty International, upon doing an
inspection of the camp in August, called the conditions and treatment of the asylum-seekers "scandalous."
My involvement here is reaching a one month benchmark and while I am pleased with the exchanges, learning and teaching part of it, I don't see the prospect of longterm usefulness here beyond this point. Perhaps by next week I will move on with my wandering to Germany to visit my sister in Cologne for a few days, and then onto Switzerland and perhaps visit Prague in Czech Republic, where I have never been and they are wall within a few hour bus ride radios from Vienna, before returning home toward the end of April.
My take on Vienna - A Fun City
Vienna is a city hard to get board in, the home of Mozart and Freud is alive with music and plays and concerts, shows and museums all the time. I went to see the Verdi's opera 'Aida' at the majestic and world renowned Vienna Opera Hall last week. It was an incredible experience. Just to be in the Opera House was mesmerizing. I enjoyed it immensly even thought because of lack of experience I was taken by an unofficial
ticket seller outside of the opera house and paid three times as much as I should have for the ticket.
Vienna has by far the most advanced and convenient public transportation in Europe reaching out to every corner of this 2 million people city. An annual pass for unlimited use of public transportation including the Underground, street trains and buses is only $350 a year, that is less than $1 a day. University tuitions are dirt cheap for the citizens ( $50 to $100 a semester for many major studies) and very inexpensive for foreign students as well. A residence may obtain a very comprehensive medical insurance for about $60 per month with practically free medication for everyone. I tell you, this country puts American system of government, education, public health and social awarness to shame, and it is all attributed to it's highly informed and educated people. A major reminder that the reason behind the rise and prospering tyrant governments and advancement of bad politicians, which rob a country out of dignity and life, in the world is their uneducated constituents and the uninformed citizens of that society as a whole. It makes you wonder why the education
budget and the horrendous cost of colleges and universities in the US is at the bottom of the any politicians list. It reminds me of an old joke: Do you know why they don't let a donkey to go to school? Its because they don't want to have a smart ass around.
With the spirit of my good hiking friends back home in mind, I welcomed an opportunity to go for a hike with James an American from Pennsylvania and an Iranian friend Masoud a physicist living in Italy, whom I met in Vienna. James gave up the American dream and moved to Vienna 12 years ago. He is a well informed man and an excellent musician. we had a great time.
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Peggy Sue Smith
non-member comment
Happy for you
Pleased that you're enjoying following your passion to travel and interact with many people.