Illegal Students Enter West Germany

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30898, 3 November 1965, Page 13

Illegal Students Enter West Germany

(N.Z. P. A.-Reuter) BONN. A dark-skinned young man stands on a Hamburg wharf, suitcase in hand and with a lost, bewildered look. If he is lucky, he may have a Hamburg address in his pocket.

He is one of the thousands of youths from developing countries who slip illegally into West Germany with dreams of studying—only to discover that scholarships and knowledge do not come so easily.

These youths are usuallly penniless, without papers or work permits, unable to speak a word of German, unqualified, and with only vague notions of what they want to do. Few have reached the level of education required by German universities and colleges. Almost none know enough German to undertake a course. The universities cannot take them and they are not permitted to work. Theoretically, these wouldbe students are undesirable aliens and should be deported. But it is costly to send a stranded student back to Asia, Africa, or South America, and, in any case, the authorities rarely have the heart to do so. So they stay, tolerated by the authorities, ignored by the police, drifting round until they end up

perhaps in a charitable mission, slip into the underworld, or, if they can afford it, go on to try their luck in Britain or America.

About 30 or 40 a day find their way, hungry and at their wits end, to a rescue centre set up for them in Hamburg by a former journalist, Miss Renate Singhofen. She tries to find them lodging with some charitable mission or at a youth hostel, and helps them to sort out their problems. First of all, she signs them up for a German course, but they have to keep themselves while learning the language. Bound by international obligations, the authorities can give only short-term labour permits. Even then, they have to wait and wait before they can get in at a university. Many give up and drift off on their own. Others, particularly younger students, are happy to take what work they can get and make no effort to improve themselves. Miss Renate Singhofen and her colleagues are hoping soon to start .a scheme for

students who fail to get to a university. After they have learned German, such students would be .apprenticed for a year to learn a trade.

A certain amount of their small salaries would go automatically into a bank so that at the end of the year they would be able to pay their own way home, having learned both German and a useful trade.