Nine die in a fire in Berlin

This is something tragic. Five children have died, nine deaths in total. Police in Berlin suspect arson to be the reason for the fire which broke out in a house mainly occupied by Arabs. We recently had a thread debating on whether or not one should learn German. According to the fire brigade the inhabitants of the house additionally endangered themselves due to their own inability to understand the instructions given by the firemen telling them to stay in their homes and not move out onto the staircase:

The fire apparently broke out in the entrance of the house after somebody had ignited prams standing about. It quickly spread up the staircase. Firemen were able to kill the flames within 15 minutes already and instructed the inhabitants not to open their doors leading onto the staircase but keep them shut. The inhabitants couldn't understand the instructions, flung open their doors and tried to flee via the staircase. Two died on the staircase, three from smoke poisoning after having opened their doors. Had they been able to understand the instructions the death toll would not have been as high.


This still leaves the question who had been responsible for the fire in the first place. Seen in terms of the high number of casualties involved it is the worst fire to have broken out in Berlin since WW2.

Perhaps flats should all have standard pictorial fire instructions on the doors like in hotels?

Not quite as tragic but a similar issue happened in Munich a few years ago. Some poison got in the Isar during the summer and radio stations were appealing for people to also tell their neighbours who didn't speak German to stay out of the water.

Just a thought, but how come NONE of the flats I've been in here have Smoke detectors/Fire alarms?

Wouldn't that help a bit?

~Rose

We had to install ours ourselves.

Preventative measures in Germany don't seem to go so far. For example, virtually no one wears a helmet when riding a bike here, or even worse when riding a horse.

I was watching "Hund, Katz und Maus" the other day, and they were teaching the female presenter how to do tricks on a horse. Not just riding, but fecking tricks like spinning around and shit. Not a helmet to be seen.

This would be unthinkable in Australia for example.

More people seem to wear helmets over here than in the UK.

I think I'd disagree with that. I used to ride to work every day in London, and I would say that 50% of people wore helmets. I still wear a helmet here, and it is very strange to see even one other person wearing one.

Ah, see I don't class London as the UK. I class normal cities like Leeds, Manchester etc

In the east, including berlin, fire alarms and sprinkler systems are non-existent. West berlin new buildings, ironically a lot of glass and metal buildings, have them. It would be incredibly expensive to rebuild these features, at today's prices, without the will which existed after WWII.

I have not met one german who know turkish. I have also met other people, living here a lot longer than my short 1.5 years, whom have said the same. Were these people wrong to not have known at least a little german and to trust and listen to the firemen? Yes. Was the entire culture wrong not to have adjusted itself and also to enforce basic literacy requirements upon immigrants? Absolutely.

Despite the seemingly feeble attempts since WWII germans have made to receive auslanders, excluding the surface rubber-stamp of residency permits, I have seen basic integration sorely lacking. There is an increasing problem with right extremism, almost conclusively proving lack of communication. I think, I hope, the tolerant, accepting, germans have moved to more accepting communities and cities in the west, or out of germany, and the nazi's have moved, some to east berlin, and many to the east outlying areas. I say this, perhaps, because I hope to move out of berlin when this has all become too much for me to close my eyes.

Taken in, this is, in my observation, directly connected to the basic cultural social way 'an ethnic german' chooses to interface with the world around them. I think it includes everyone, from my observations, so far many born and acculturized in the east, and 'right-extremist' ideologies, with few exceptions. MAYBE, and I'd like feedback on it, in the west, where they have had about 50 years to move forward, while the east largely staled and tripped out on communism, these problems are not common everyday occurances.

OT: No one wears helmets in berlin. How many people posting in this thread, besides the one's who have Berlin as their location, have spent time here and looked at it?
I lived in the pacific northwest of north america before moving here. Everyone wore a helmet there, except for some of the street bums. I see kids on bikes in berlin, with their parents, and the kid is made/forced, I'm sure, to wear a helmet, while the parent wears none! Soft heads and all, I'd say it's duplicity and lack of common sense.

Re sprinklers/fire alarms.

I was just thinking you know - the battery powered ones that make noise - those are in all buildings - even if sprinklers aren't.

OT -

I have a bike that I ride all the time - my problem?

The place I bought it DID NOT sell helmets for adults.

I'm going to the states in November, and will be bringing mine back with me.

Kind of a funny perspective.

~Rose

OT: IKEA, Family Section, has Helmets for 5 euros. About how much it should cost for styrofoam, shell, and straps made in China. Comfortable, my wife has one, they are silver, with either flourescent green or orange or other colors, adjustable straps, different sizes, and a rotating click-lock knob in the back.

OT-
I guess i'll be making a trip to Ikea this weekend!
Thanks!

OT: The price has gone up (although not to the original 15€) to 11.50.