Reactions to the break out of the Lager at Osloerstr. 23 – OPlatz

After the rise up of the people living in the Lager at Osloerstr. 23 two weeks ago (link), a lot of things are happening in a very short time: the company administrating the lager, BTB Bildungszentrum, and LAF (the new LAGeSo) are really afraid about the propagation of these protests, and here we share with you and make public some of the consequences of this first protest. First of all, the supporters of the protest organized by the people living in the Lager are getting bans (Hausverbot) that don’t allow them to visit the families and play with the children, as they have been doing for over a year. The families and the children are very angry with the administration of the Lager, specially with Mark Held, the Heimleiter. Mr. Held is lying all the time to everybody: for example, he says to the people from Lager Mobilisation Group that now they are asking everybody who wants to visit a friend to sign a contract, but when someone not belonging to the group tries to enter, no contract is required. Prohibiting the entrance of the friends of the people living in the Lager only segregates them even more, and goes against the integration principles that are supposed to guide the work of the companies administrating the Lagers.

Secondly, the company BTB Bildungszentrum is having now emergency meetings: they are afraid of loosing a big business with the administration of the Lager that gives them around 100 000 € of benefits per month (after paying costs, salaries, etc.), and yesterday, on Wednesday the 8th of December, the boss of the company, Frauke Behrens, was visiting the Lager to see what’s going on.

But she was not alone in the Lager: also workers from the state like Noemi Majer (Koordinatorin für Flüchtlingsfragen Integrationsbüro) and Sascha Langenbach (second hand of the president of LAF -the new LAGeSo) where also visiting the Lager with translators, so that they could talk directly with the people living there.

After their visit to the Lager, we were able to talk a little bit with them. This was very productive: for example Mr. Langenbach thought that BTB earns 15 € per person and day. He is wrong: BTB actually earns 47,28 € per person per day, which makes over 1400 € per person every month (!). We can multiply by the 130 people that are living in this Lager to get an idea of the nice business that this Lager is for the company BTB. Another thing that Mr. Langenbach was saying is that he doesn’t understand how this situation, with thousands of people living in NUK (and this are just the numbers of Berlin), is not escalating and propagating to different Lagers. They are aware that this will happen soon, and that’s why they are all afraid.

The people living in the camp just want this horrible Lager in Osloerstr. 23, ran by Mark Held from BTB, to be closed. They are suffering a lot of pressure, their living conditions are more and more stressful, and the only thing they are asking for is having a place were they can stay peacefully, rest after the horrible experiences that they had to live (not only in their country and in their way to Germany, but also here), and start integrating in the society. In this link one can read their concrete demands.
So the questions are: when will this business finish? When will a real process of integration start?