Migration

On Tuesday afternoon I went to Oranianburg. It is a town north of Berlin and infamous for its concentration camp. To the south of the town is a campus built in the 1930’s for the SS. It has now been modernised and used as a Police Academy.

Some of you may remember that I worked with Dr. B in Bernau before I retired. He is now the main English teacher at this academy. He invited me as a guest speaker to meet officers at the end of their course.  It was great. Very good English and lots of humour.

I really enjoyed it and meeting ‘The Boss’. He spoke better English than most native speakers, was about 2 metres tall and looked like an advert for muscle training. I was asked if I would come back to talk to the next group. I quickly said, “Yes”!

Later I went to my local SPD office for a meeting. It was to set up a Migration-Integration Advisory  group for my district. I was elected to one of the four committee positions. I said I would take on the task for one year and also find a younger successor, perhaps from the Vietnamese community, which is one of the main immigrant groups in the district.  Here a photo of some members who elected me.

Next day, in my ‘new’ official capacity I went to a meeting of the SPD Annual Meeting for Migration-Integration Groups in Berlin. It was held in the Berlin Parliament House. It was a new experience for me and took me back many years to when I used to attend such meetings in the UK.