Germany has seen a major storm yesterday, coincidentally named Friederike, with hurricane strengt fury.  Snow, ice and winds up to 200 kpm throttled traffic, closed every single train service and delayed planes. People died and got injured, and the recovery will be slow.

I had planned to write about Germany because an article caught my eye that talked about a student exchange between the former East and West of Germany.The general idea of student exchange among different nations is of course to overcome stereotypes, learn to know and hopefully like your neighbors, and have first hand impressions of historical and political differences and similarities.

An exchange then, within the same country, is unusual, unless that country has been artificially divided for decades. As it turns out, the exchange used to work perfectly fine, with a lot of East German students living in West Germany and fewer but still many West German students doing the reverse. Not so in the last three years, however. The program has basically folded.

Why? Many kids from the East do not like to be treated in the West as backwards, potential yokels, or aligned with Neonazis. Or they are aligned with Neonazis and do not want to live somewhere where that is still taboo. A full quarter of the West German youth of the teenage age range now has a migrant background; they fear that they will actually not be safe if going to school in East German states where anti-foreigner sentiment runs unbridled.

There is fear and there is an decidedly conscious sense of “other” on both sides.

The NYT, by the way, had in their recent 2018 travel recommendations mentioned “Germany’s Western states,” and nothing about the East. The latest facts bear out a warning for those who look different (reported in TAZ.de) – and I am just giving two examples.

Two days before New Year’s 19 people were injured and 14 made homeless during arson of a house of Roma families in Plauen, Saxony. The DA reports that neighbors attacked the fire brigrade and yelled insults, including “let them burn” and Sieg Heil.

A refuge shelter was stormed by people who beat up the residents. Guard personell was passively looking on, according to witness reports in Cottbus.

It makes me sick to my stomach. Just as much as the latest reports from Poland, immediately adjacent to the Easter provinces:

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Photographs from the spring feeling here this week, nature being impervious to the crap going on in the world and blissfully sporting 56 degrees in mid January……