Germany Houses Refugees in Nazi Concentration Camps
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Germany-Houses-Refugees-in-Nazi-Concentration-Camps-20150202-0008.html
As a response to the rising number of refugees seeking asylum, Germany is housing the refugees in former Nazi camps.
German authorities in
the city of Augsburg are planning to house refugees in a part of the
Nazi's Dachau concentration camp called Hall 116.Dachau was the first of many Nazi concentration camps opened in Germany in 1933. At first it was meant to hold political prisoners, but grew to 100 sub-camps, including one in Augsburg. Around 2,000 people in the Augsburg sub-camp were enslaved to work for Messerschmitt, an aircraft manufacturer. More than 32,000 people died at the camp.
Augsburg city official Stefan Kiefer said to local newspaper, Augsburger Allgemeine, that "One cannot only commemorate (at this memorial site), one also has to act," referring to the need to find shelter for refugees. In the past couple of years, a higher number of asylum claims in Germany has created a shortage of housing to shelter the refugees.
Earlier in January, the German city of Schwerte moved asylum seekers into a branch of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Birgin Naujoks, a spokesperson for the local council of asylum seekers said to the Washington Post, “Generally, the use of former concentration camp compounds as refugee centers awakens associations with the site's Nazi-era [use], where people were forcefully herded together."
She added that the refugees were supposedly happy with their new housing.
"They say that they have much more space there compared to the building they had previously lived in," said Dachau.
In the past couple of months, the Islamophobic PEGIDA movement has gained support in Germany. One of the principal aims of the movement is to create a new immigration law that would greatly restrict the number of refugees coming to Germany and make it easier to deport those seeking asylum.
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