How the Friedland transit camp greeted me. A week in a refugee camp. Friedland, Germany. Allocation to permanent residence

The reception camp for the late settlers of Friedland was located in a small village on the southern outskirts of the federal state of Lower Saxony in Germany. The camp is subordinate to the federal agency BVA. Late settlers who have received Aufnahmebescheid arrive at this camp for initial registration and completion of the initiated procedures under the late settler program.

Camp Friedland - personal experience

My arrival at the Friedland camp was in November 2014. At that time there was a huge influx of refugees and the camp was overcrowded. As a result, they could not accommodate me in the camp - there were no places. At the expense of the federal department, I was accommodated in a hotel located in a neighboring town. In total, the procedures in the camp took about a week, after which I was already assigned to the city where I live now.

The Friedland resettlement camp accepts new residents on weekdays and weekends. You can find the resettlement camp at: Bundesverwaltungsamt - Außenstelle Friedland, Heimkehrerstr. 16, 37133 Friedland, Germany. The registration itself and the work hours of officials are from Monday to Friday. You will only have to communicate with officials and camp workers in German. If your knowledge does not allow this, you should think about a relative or friends who can help in this situation. Understanding officials is simply vital.
You will be provided with clean bed linen, keys to the room in the camp, and a sheet indicating the authorities that you will need to go through. The Friedland late migrant camp is, of course, not a five-star hotel, but it is quite possible to stay there for a couple of days. We'll talk more about interviews, procedures and questionnaires below.

Fluorography

First of all, they send you to a neighboring town for fluorography. At the clinic we found ourselves in, four people entered different doors at a time, so the line went very quickly and did not cause any inconvenience. You find yourself alone in the room, so you calmly shoot up and move on. Upon completion, get dressed and go out to the others. After finishing X-raying adults, doctors begin examining children. Children are not given x-rays - they are examined by therapists, ENT specialists and other doctors. Upon completion, you will be provided with a certificate with the result of your examination and you will return to the Friedland camp

Initial registration

Afterwards, you will have to visit the BVA federal office. It is located right in the Friedland camp. They will provide questionnaires with questions written in German (explanations in Russian can be found below each question) - it is important to remember that the questionnaires must be filled out exclusively in German. A rough list of questions looks like this:

  • FULL NAME
  • Age
  • Where are you from?
  • Education
  • Work experience (where and when and by whom did you work)
  • Relatives in Germany, where they live
  • Religion
  • Where would you like to live in Germany

The forms are handed over to officials and there will be several hours of waiting. Next, they call the official, the forms and documents are checked. They ask questions, but this is not just a sincere conversation - everything is entered into the computer.

Allocation to permanent residence

A few days later I again had a meeting with an official from a federal department. This was a different official than the one who registered me. It turned out that they had been looking for me since the morning, but I was at the hotel and did not know about it. In the office, the official asked me where I would like to live - in what city and land. I asked to go to the city to visit my relatives and he sent a request to that city about the opportunity to receive me, asking me to sit in the waiting room in the meantime. After an hour of waiting, I was called back into his office. On his desk he already had ready-made documents stating that I had been registered at the Friedland camp, a direction to and a direction to the hostel of the city where I was assigned. They settled me in a different city than where I originally asked. Now I live 400 km from the city where I wanted to go.

The choice of city and land where you would like to live is limited - it all depends on the city’s ability to accept you. There is a high probability of living where you would like, if you have relatives in this city and the opportunity to register you with them at least for the first time, not yet.

Final stage

The last thing I visited in the Friedland late migrant camp was the Jobcenter. There they also gave me a certain questionnaire, which I later submitted to Jobcenter in my city. So they began to accrue me a “late resettlement allowance.” Later, I notified the camp management that all procedures were completed and I was given 110 euros - partial compensation for the cost of the flight to Germany. They also bought me a train ticket so I could get to the city. In the morning I handed over the keys to the room, received a few more documents and went to the station. This was the end of my stay in the Friedland displaced persons camp.

After arriving in Germany, I, like all late migrants, had to arrive at the camp of late migrants in Friedland.

I would like to start with the fact that I flew all night on the plane, since this was the first time in my life that I was not able to sleep on the plane. And so, having arrived at the camp at 12 noon, I, sleepy and powerless, planned to quickly get the key and fall asleep where I would be accommodated. The first step was to visit the commandant to somehow inform about yourself and get the keys. Since it was 12 noon, the commandant said that she had lunch. She asked me to wait and sit in the corridor. This is where the fun began. Returning half an hour later, the commandant began calling everyone except me over the speakerphone. After sitting for another two hours waiting, I felt like I was going to collapse and fall asleep right in the corridor, and besides, I really wanted to eat. Unable to bear it, I went ahead, upon entering I gave my call, my passport and asked to be processed. The commandant handed my papers to the girl sitting next to me at the computer, apparently an employee of a federal department. It took me a long time to write something down and return the documents to the commandant. Then the commandant gives me the papers and declares that there is no room in the camp and they are ready to put me up in a hotel or offered to stay with my closest relatives. My closest relatives lived in Bavaria and therefore I agreed to a hotel without hesitation. Again they asked me to wait in the corridor. And after sitting until 16.30, afraid to go anywhere, they would suddenly call me, a young girl comes out and says that I can take my suitcase, in 10 minutes her colleague will take me to the hotel. Having taken the suitcase, an older man met me, opened the trunk and I, putting my luggage there, tiredly sat down in the back seat. We drove for about 20 minutes and stopped at some village, as it turned out later it was resort town, we stopped near some hotel. I pulled out my luggage and followed the man, he came up to the reception, said a few words, pointed his finger at me, and left. I went up to the reception and they asked me a couple of questions whether I smoked or something like that. Then they said what time it was for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Nodding my head wearily, I climbed into my room. It was surprisingly nice, a wonderful shower, TV, but it was cold, very cold... then I learned that I had to turn on the batteries myself. Having turned on the battery, I took a shower and at 18 pm I fell asleep without my hind legs and slept until lunch the next day. After lunch, I saw that I was not the only Russian speaker. Besides me, 3 other families of late migrants lived in the hotel. We all met and talked for a couple of days until we were told at one of the breakfasts that tomorrow at 10 am a bus would pick us up and take us to the procedures. The next day, at exactly 10, a bus arrived with about 20 people and us. The girl announced through a voice recorder throughout the bus that there is now war in Syria and therefore there are many refugees in the camp, asked us to sympathize with them and said that the employees are no less interested than us in getting us processed quickly. Then I called everyone on the bus by last name and noted who was there and who wasn’t. My last name was already there. Afterwards, she walked around the bus and gave everyone a form and a slider in which it was written who we needed to visit.

Fluorography

First of all, we arrived in a neighboring town where the same girl who was on the bus took us to Fluorography. Entering the hospital, we were led into a corridor with 4 doors. One person went into each of them; when I went there, I found myself in a small room, as I understood, I had to undress there. Having taken off my outer clothing, I opened the next door and there the doctor took me to the machine and asked me not to breathe. Literally a couple of minutes later he nodded his head as if to sign that everything was done and I got dressed again and went out to everyone. We were asked to be in one place and not disperse. Having gone through everything Fluorography the same girl said that now the children will be examined. For children Fluorography didn't do it. The children were examined by therapists and ENT specialists... Everyone passed the examination safely, everyone was given the results and we were taken to Friedland.

Initial registration

Then we were taken to the federal department, where they told us to fill out the forms that they gave us on the bus. It is written there in German and below in Russian, but fill it out exclusively in German. There were questions like this:

  1. FULL NAME
  2. Age
  3. Where
  4. Education
  5. Work experience, where and when and by whom did you work?
  6. Relatives in Germany, where they live
  7. Religion
  8. Where would I like to live in Germany

And everything like that. Afterwards we were called by name and taken into the office of an official who checked our profiles and entered the data into the computer.

Afterwards we were put on a bus and taken to our hotels.

Secondary registration

Literally a couple of days later they called us and said that a minibus would arrive and to be ready with our things. The next day we were brought to the camp with our things. There they gave me the key to the room and told me to go back to the building of the federal department for term. When I got there I found out that they had been looking for me since the morning. I said that I had arrived and literally 30 minutes later the official who called me was not the same one who was in the first term, there was another official and he already took me to his office and there he also filled out something and then said that he had submitted a request to the land and city where I want to live. I asked me to sit and wait. After sitting for about an hour, he called me again and already gave me documents that I had passed registration, directions to courses and directions to the dormitory where I would live. It turned out that the city was not where I wanted, but completely different. 400 km from the city where I wanted to live. Well, here I was powerless, so after thanking for everything, I retired to my room in the camp.

Final stage

The next day I visited the Job Center where they filled out a form for me and gave it to me so that I could give it to my place of residence. Then, going to the commandant, I gave my documents and said that I was leaving, they asked me to wait, after 30 minutes they called me and showed me a train ticket and said that they would give it to me tomorrow. They gave me 110 euros, partial compensation for my expenses for coming to Germany. After spending the night in the camp, at 7 am I came to the commandant and gave me the keys and in return I received a train ticket and a bunch of other papers that were useful in the city where I lived.

This is approximately the stage all late migrants go through in the camp in Friedland. In the following articles I will talk about adaptation in the city, the first steps that will undoubtedly be useful to you. And I'll give you some practical advice.

Friedland is a small, very small town in Lower Saxony, just 14 kilometers from Göttingen. My relatives brought me there straight from the airport - so that I could get used to it and complete all the necessary formalities.

I saw there a cluster of small one-story yellow buildings, which were recommended to me in advance as barracks. It was late, so they simply gave me the keys to the room and a card that would be used to give me food, and told me where and when I should come in the morning to check in.

The rooms there are four-bed, with four iron beds and four closets that can be locked with a key. But there were very few people (after all, almost everyone left the CIS before the mid-2000s), so I lived alone in my room all week, walked along the quiet corridors, boiled tea in the empty kitchen. By the way, the kettles there are secured in place with some kind of locks: either to prevent them from being stolen, or to prevent them from being turned on in the rooms, violating fire safety rules. Apparently, the Germans do not really believe in the presence of legal awareness among newly arrived people.

It seems that in the barracks people are grouped according to their nationality. There are a couple of almost empty buildings for people coming from Russia and Kazakhstan (there are many more of the latter) and there are a lot of other buildings densely populated by people with a less European appearance. Of course, blacks (from Somalia and somewhere else) and, of course, Arabs (those from Syria and Libya). They all gather three times a day at the same time, in the same place. At the entrance to the dining room, at 7.00, 11.30 and 16.30. They gather in advance, in a very dense crowd at the very doors, and when the guard opens the door (and he does this with an invariably disgusted expression on his face), they rush inside, pushing each other away. In fact, there is enough food for everyone, and it’s not worth it (and the food is frankly bad), but people still worry.

I can’t help but say something else about cultural features: near the Friedland train station, right on the asphalt, during one walk I saw a pile of human excrement. All around is the usual German cleanliness, but here - this. I suspect that the culprit of the incident was not an indigenous resident at all... And a photograph of another “non-indigenous”, namely a Somali, hangs in all administrative buildings. The man became famous for stabbing someone to death right there in the camp, and has still not been found.

But in general, refugees are a fairly calm crowd, and many of them try to behave correctly. For example, they say "sorry", "thank you" or "hello" depending on the situation, in German or English. They don’t jump ahead of their turn (well, almost never). And there was still only one unpleasant discovery, although I walked around the entire town many times in an attempt to unwind.

Is it true, most of"settlers" are still very dissatisfied with Germany's migration policy. Having stood in the general queue, under advertisements in Chinese, Polish and four varieties of Arabic, looking at the pregnant black women, whose hems were clutched by a couple of other children, at the uncontrollable Arab boys running, screaming and studying with great interest the world, Russians (or “Russians,” the devil knows) start conversations over food on a limited range of topics: “why are they letting all these people in?”, “look, look at that face!” and even “the German race has completely degenerated.”

Refugees live in the camp, as I understand it, for a long time. There are also courses for them German language. But the migrants live in Friedland for an average of four days until they receive necessary documents. First - registration. “First you need to be unmelted,” experienced people say, following the established fashion, which is unpleasant for me, of inserting German words modified in the Russian manner into Russian speech. Each migrant is given a “runner” with a list of all places and actions, and the process begins.

First you need to go to Göttingen for an x-ray. People with open tuberculosis are, of course, not expelled from Germany: they are sent to a specialized camp located somewhere nearby, and treated there. And then you need to go around five more offices in the camp itself, and go into some more than once. This takes three days. Officials must record information about education and work experience, enter into an agreement to receive benefits, find out whether there are places in that federal state where the migrant wants to go. By the way, I wasn’t very lucky with this: my relatives live in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, but these lands are the most popular, and at least in those days people were sent there only if there were siblings or children-parents there. Uncles and aunts are not close enough relatives, alas. So I was given a choice between Mecklenburg-Pomerania and Saxony. The top one, that is. I, of course, chose the second one.

Yes, I almost forgot: the favorite topic of conversation in queues in front of offices is German officials. I must admit, this surprised me. Nobody remembers the Russia they just left, where things are clearly worse, but they complain about the Germans. They work slowly, just for show, are not very friendly, and do not receive you at the appointed time. The latter, by the way, is true. Moreover, it happened that they scheduled an appointment for early morning - at 7.30, for example, and forced me to wait until ten.

Here you go. They assigned me Saxony as my place of residence and asked me to live in Friedland for three more days until a place became available here. It was Friday-Sunday, so there was simply no one in the Russian barracks. At all. To entertain myself, I went to Göttingen, then went to Kassel, and on Monday at six in the morning I received a ticket upon discharge from the camp and went east - with transfers in Schneewald, Halle, Leipzig, Dresden and Pirna.

Finally, photos from my building.

Next to each door they write the names and number of people (at the top, of course; at the bottom - the room number):


Skylight:

The map was very relevant:

Warning about telephone scammers:

Kitchen:

This hangs over the sink:

Two such structures stand in each room:





We were flying from Siberia. The tickets were for March 3 to Dusseldorf. We deliberately bought tickets not to Hanover, for a trivial reason - tickets to Dusseldorf cost us 300...350 euros for two, the same tickets to Hannover would have cost 500 euros+.
Besides, we were just interested in seeing this city. We booked a cheap but very decent hotel near Hauptbahnhof. We took a rest after the flights/transfers and at lunchtime boarded the train to Friedland. Tickets and discount card bahncard 25: ordered from the Russian Federation in advance. Everything was very simple and convenient. On the evening of the 4th we were already in Friedland. We moved into the 5th barrack. The people in Friedland are in darkness. There are 20-30 displaced people and 200-250 refugees. At the end of our stay there, several refugees were moved into a barracks with displaced people, since there was simply no room. Enough has already been said about Friedland itself, the food there, the conditions, etc. - a small, beautiful, clean and tidy town. The only thing I can note is the kind of “cadres” one encounters among the displaced people—it’s quiet darkness. Sitting on the “courts”, near the barracks, drinking beer from the throat and husking sunflower seeds right there on the ground - these gentlemen were not at all embarrassed.
Distribution.
Since we had no relatives, there were few options to get to Bavaria or NRV. This was actually confirmed during the meeting with the berator. He simply showed a list of all lands and quotas for each. Berator fortunately spoke English, although worse than us))). We approached the issue openly. We just asked what we wanted to do in a big city and what would they advise us as IT specialists? They seemed to be impressed and said that Thuringia, Brandenburg, Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt and the north would not suit us in any way, since these are practically only agricultural regions. They recommended Saxony. We didn’t bother too much and agreed. When we came to the berator on the next term, he said that we were not going to Leipzig, but UNDER Leipzig, which I didn’t like at all (he said that in Leipzig all the cities are full), and after he gave the exact address and I googled where it was and how a slight shock came over us.
Near Leipzig there was a very small town called Wurzen, it was unexpected, but not so scary. It turned out that Heim is located in the village of Trebelshain, 6 km from this very Wurzen. And there is no transport, no store or bakery. Even the connection there worked poorly. We arrived there on March 11th.
http://goo.gl/maps/stmHX
The nearest transport is the train, the stop of which is 2 km from this “farm”. 2 km along a windswept road just to go to Wurzen and buy groceries.
We experienced the biggest shock when the housemaster of this place finally brought us there.
Cold, 2-storey building in the “welcome to the USSR and the GDR” style, a half-wall map of the USSR from the GDR. Cast iron batteries and furniture from the USSR. Dust, cobwebs. Bunk beds. The image was completed by a view from the window of a barn with sheep that were grazing there outside the window, as well as a note written in Russian and pasted over the urinal in the men’s toilet - “don’t flatter yourself - come closer!”










It was clear that they were very rarely sent to this prison last years. Besides us, there was only one family from Kazakhstan, who moved out a few days after we arrived.
Despite all the obvious disadvantages of this place and this area, there were also advantages, as it turned out later.
1. Housemaster. An elderly German, Herr Herberdt, 65 years old. He helped with everything, drove him everywhere in his car. It was clear that he knew all the procedures perfectly. He spoke only German with a hellish dialect, which we learned to barely understand. I helped fill out all the entrags, commenting on every difficult line or word in the entrags.
2. Speed ​​of bureaucracy. On the second day in Heim we visited the Job Center and the Burgersamt. On the third day, we already had German temporary annual passports (Reisepassen) and an open account in Sparkasse. A week later we had the spark pass cards in our hands, and a week later we already received late migrant certificates from Friedland.
3. Khaim was, one might say, empty, and therefore we could quite easily manage a huge kitchen with a bunch of dishes, essentially designed for 10-15 families and a huge dining room. We lived in a room on the second floor and we had a personal bathroom (very clean, I must say), where we could easily leave all our washing supplies.
4. The absence of refugees (refugees) was a positive factor. I have a normal attitude towards people of the East, but let’s say different approaches to hygiene in Russia and, say, Afghanistan, as well as religious aspects, would create certain inconveniences.
Search for an apartment.
As soon as our neighbors from Kazakhstan, with the help of our relatives, found an apartment and moved out of the village, we also became concerned about finding housing. The well-known site http://www.immobilienscout24.de came to the rescue
We wrote a very polite letter in German, explaining who we were and what we wanted, and I began methodically sending out requests to apartments that interested us and met social standards. Previously, I studied which areas of Leipzig it is definitely better not to go into, and which ones are good (why do you need the Turkish quarter for example?!). The fact is that farmers are very reluctant to rent out apartments to applicants receiving ALG-II social benefits, which almost all of us, displaced people at first, are (and this point must be discussed when looking for housing - otherwise you will simply waste time/ride in vain). The 30 messages sent received 3 or 4 replies. We looked at the apartments and chose one. Fermiter was a private trader, not a broker. This was his home. Among other things, the farmer spoke English well, which improved mutual understanding by 5 times.
The bottom line. On March 3rd we landed in Germany, and on April 1st we moved into an apartment in a wonderful and big city Leipzig. There are courses ahead... and much more. I don’t presume to judge myself, since I have no experience, but a friend of mine who has lived here for many years said that everything worked out FANTASTICALLY quickly. If anyone has questions, write in a personal message, I can help you. Good luck to all!

Auf Wiedersehen!



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