District administrator and mayor counter allegations of racism

Created: 2022-03-23Updated: 2022-03-23 ​​15:06

By: Peter Schiebel

More than a week ago, volunteers prepared the town hall gymnasium in Gilching for refugees from the civil war in Ukraine.

In the front row District Administrator Stefan Frey (2nd from right) and Gilching's Mayor Manfred Walter (right) © Dagmar Rutt

The district is accused of racism on social media because it relocated some large families among civil war refugees from Ukraine.

District administrator Stefan Frey and Gilching's mayor Manfred Walter explain why this was inevitable.

District/Gilching

– It is a nasty accusation that is currently being spread on social media.

A post there literally says: “#Racism in Germany: Sinti and Roma stop showing solidarity very quickly.

In the district of #Starnberg, refugees are being driven from emergency shelter to emergency shelter in buses and everyone refuses to take them in. What is the truth of the accusation?

The Starnberger Merkur asked.

District Administrator Stefan Frey confirms that in the past few days there have been problems with around 60 people from large family groups who have come to Germany from Ukraine as refugees from the civil war.

These were women, young people and children as well as grandparents.

These were initially accommodated in the youth hostel in Possenhofen and in the BRK multi-generation campus in Gauting.

However, there was “major trouble” quickly, according to Frey.

District Administrator Frey: "You behaved completely wrong"

The people would not have followed any rules and thus seriously frightened, bothered and disturbed other residents.

"You behaved completely wrong", the rooms in Possenhofen, which were only occupied for a short time, now have to be renovated.

The obligatory examination in the clinic was also to be completed “with great difficulty”.

The people could not be integrated, says Frey.

In addition, he was unable to place them with private individuals, even if they had declared their willingness in principle to take in war refugees at home.

Frey: "We are talking about families who have up to 14 children."

Scared women and children in town hall gymnasium

He does not know whether these were Sinti and Roma.

And it's not important to him either.

"The ethnic group I belong to doesn't play a role here," says Frey.

"I have to react to the circumstances." Some people had Ukrainian citizenship, some were stateless, and the nationality of others was unclear.

After there were problems in Possenhofen and Gauting, the district had the people taken by bus to the town hall gymnasium in Gilching on Monday, where the initial reception facility went into operation on the same day.

But the situation there escalated.

Manfred Walter: "It was an aggressiveness that I could not have imagined"

Mayor Manfred Walter: "When I went to the gym around 1 or 2 p.m., three young people had just set fire to garbage in a wastepaper basket outside." Walter says that he then extinguished the fire himself with a tin lid.

“The youngsters stood by and laughed.

Shortly thereafter, they tried to steal a bicycle and pulled on the lock until the stand came off the floor.” In the hall, Ukrainian women and children then reported to him via an interpreter that they didn’t want to stay because they were in front afraid of the extended families.

"They said that under the circumstances they will not stay overnight in the hall."

Refugees partly relocated to Ingolstadt

Walter is still stunned: "It was an aggressiveness that I could not have imagined." After he had described the situation to Frey, the district administrator reacted.

He said he phoned the government of Upper Bavaria, which is responsible for allocating the refugees.

Result: 34 people were taken by bus to Ingolstadt/Manching and temporarily accommodated in government accommodation, as the spokesman for the government of Upper Bavaria, Wolfgang Rapp, explained.

"Even before that, 24 other war refugees from the Ukraine, who were initially accommodated in accommodation provided by the district office, had also been transferred to government accommodation in Gilching and Weßling at the request of the district office."

When they reported this to the war refugees in the hall, applause broke out spontaneously, says Walter.

"There was great relief." The mayor also points out that there is currently a great willingness to help people from Ukraine in Gilching and in the entire district.

That should not be affected by such incidents, he says.

As of Monday evening, according to the mayor, there were 52 people in the town hall gymnasium - not including the extended families - including 50 Ukrainians (mainly women and children, but also a single father and a senior) and two Algerians.

They are students from Ukraine, "they are two really nice guys".

SPD member Walter rejects the accusation of racism, as does CSU member Frey.