"Travellers" at Alexanderplatz

[dessa_dangerous 13,315]

In a perfect world, this thread would remain a discussion about panhandling at Alex and not degenerate into a historical debate about Roma and Zigeuner throughout the centuries; however, I don't want to be overly optimistic...

 

At the risk of stating something that doesn't really bear repeating (and it has been--many times) it's not the begging that bothers me as much as the tactics.

 

[rant]It is bad enough that while I'm sipping my €1 paper cup of coffee and smoking my rolled cigarettes, sitting in my raggedy, five-year-old Army coat and drinking tap water out of a store-brand cola bottle, the picture of working-class poverty, absorbed in my thoughts and watching the world go by, that a lady dragging a toddler around in the 3° autumn afternoon comes up to me and screeches, "Excuse me, you speak English?"

 

I say, "no."

 

She asks, "Deutsch?"

 

I say, "Nein."

 

She walks away, peacefully enough, but sure as shooting, five minutes later, she herself, or another Roma/Gypsy/Travller/Insert PC Term here will come up and ask the same frickin' question. The other day it was so bad that I actually left Alex because I couldn't be left in peace for more than a couple minutes at a time; I would see them approaching from thirty feet away and steel myself for the attack; I couldn't relax; I was a bundle of nerves.

 

Besides the fact that I cannot appear to have extra euros jangling about my person, I am triply annoyed by the way the children are mistreated. (Many people claim that the children are drugged but I don't know where they can possibly have found concrete proof of this.) My beef is that it is freezing cold out and the kids are being forced to join the person acting as their mother for the day on her rounds. A couple of weeks ago I saw a little girl about eight years old, already a profi, walking around barefoot in pedal-pushers in the rain and carrying a screaming two-year-old on her hip, asking people if they spoke English. It was enough to break your heart. Day before yesterday I saw a relatively placid toddler being literally screamed at, slapped in the face, and violently dragged off by its sleeve, for what crime, I did not know.

 

The kids are not properly dressed for winter, presumably to persuade even hard-hearted povos like myself crumble and give a few euros for the poor children.

 

Has anyone here ever seen a "Traveller" family asleep on a park bench?

 

I don't know where they go at night, or what they do with the money. But something tells me they are not completely homeless; that, having children, they could conceivably apply for some sort of government assistance/housing, feed and clothe the children properly and send them to school.

 

The problem seems to have worsened in the last year or so. When I first got here you might see a couple of the Do You Speak English ladies, sans enfant, a couple times a week at Alex. Now they are fairly swarming the place, daily, babies in tow.

 

Can nothing be done to protect the kids? Surely, if you were to witness a child being abused in public and its parents had the gall to stand around the scene of the crime, arrogantly demanding money for the privilege of getting to watch, some sort of agency could become involved and the children removed to a safer home.

 

Horrible things happen inside private homes every hour, but the public is not forced to watch, and then harrassed for money. The irritation, anger and indignance it causes me are indescribable.[/rant]

 

Your thoughts?

[Chocky 1,223]

My thoughts are; (and this is not meant to sound cynical or hard hearted), you need to stop thinking about this stuff so much, Berlin in winter is hard and depressing enough without piling the problems of the world on to your own plight. If you were in a position to help financially, which from the sound of it you aren't, then sure; donate some money to a homeless/refugee/abused persons charity.

But I would say you are correct in assuming that these people are simply abusing children in pursuit of their careers as professional beggars. They should be prevented from doing this by the police, and I don't really understand why they aren't, but as a piece of friendly advice, don't dwell on it too much..

[Deccie 244]

while i have my own private way of being charitable, i certainly do not give money to anyone on the street. I have several times when i felt bad brought soneone for a roll and coffee, but i generally have stopped that now since a homeless person rejected my offer of a banana on the u-bahn.

 

As to the chld carrying females on Alex, I generally just start moving my hands as if I am signing and they stop bothering me, however Dessa you are totally corect in my opinion on being disturbed/interrupted and tothe increase in said number of folk at Alex. I must admit I have never seen and form of "abuse" just the kid in tow to increase the sympathy value....

[trollydolly 61]

I feel your pain. Seriously I totally get every word of that Dessa. It does my bloody head in. I wish the kiddie protection lot would send someone down to the known haunts and round up all the obvious cases and investigate. What future do these poor kids have? Begging, crime that's it! If I'm on my own I don't even answer with words I just make a sort of noise and look confused gets rid of them quicker. I reckon they probably think I'm on day release from a unit somewhere. Doesn't stop them coming back though.

[theFonz 41]

they frustrate me too, it literally is so bad now that i left the other day.

 

I did get cursed for saying no the other week to the speak english question, so now i curse them upon approach, doesnt do much good but shouting voodoo noises (no i cant explain what these are in text) and waving my hands upon their approach usually keeps them at bay.

 

either that or just bark at them, the old walking home alone trick, bark to yourself, see how many approach you then.

[The Thing from Uranus 4]

Beggars and thieves. Alex is getting to be worse than Venice.

[cantenaccio 3]

 

It is bad enough that while I'm sipping my €1 paper cup of coffee and smoking my rolled cigarettes, sitting in my raggedy, five-year-old Army coat and drinking tap water out of a store-brand cola bottle, the picture of working-class poverty

self pity

[blue78 254]

 

Has anyone here ever seen a "Traveller" family asleep on a park bench?

 

Hi Dessa,

 

There was a post about this a while back i believe.. and i do feel your pain, basically the general concensus i have heard from Germans etc is that it is a very profitable scam..(if it wasnt fiscally worth it.. no one woud do it! they would all stop selling the strassenfeger tommorrow if it wasnt worth it!.. this is another example... they are not stupid)

 

They all have houses, clothes and a bed to sleep in, Hell a tour guide friend of mine has even seen them getting dropped off by their husband in his Mercedes and in other instances gotten a starbucks delivery... The advice given by the tevision on this subject is not to give them money because in a sense it is nothing but a crude form of slavery by the husband, which extorts the money to pay for his car, etc... Give them food! somthing they can eat, and they must not turn in to their pimps (husbands)..

 

But also my heart goes out to the children, if i was in charge i would have child wellfare and polizei at every one of those houses.. as this is no life for those children!

 

just my 2 cents worth..

[MattRoberts 10]

These people have nothing. It's hard enough being in Germany as an English person, coping with the unreasonable discrimination and constant cold shoulder that the vast majority of most Germans show anyone foreign. I hate to think what it is like being from Asia or Turkey or somewhere. The only job these people can hope for is literally cleaning the streets or cleaning toilets, no wonder they are begging.

Also Alexanderplatz is a crap place to hang out. It is even worse than Leicester Square in London which is also a crap place to hang out and full of weirdos.

[KäptnKnitterbart 45]

I don't think Matt knows what he's talking about. There's been a lot about this problem in the media -- there were several issues this summer with "roma" or "gypsy" window washers getting violent with people who didn't donate.

 

The EU is expanding and it's easier for people in less fortunate countries to come to the healthy economies. Five years ago there were no gypsy bands around, now they're here all the time.

 

The government dude in charge of foreigners said it's bad to donate to the mothers because in Romania (where many come from) there are state-run schools and, legally, the kids are required to attend. Financing their stay in Germany only worsens the problem.

 

I saw an Arte documentary on some of the musicians, who looked little better than beggars to me. They were actually totally normal Romanian musicians staying with a relative in a perfectly nice apartment in Spandau. I would assume it's not much different for the beggar ladies. But I doubt anyone is living the high life. If begging were so profitable, I'd be out there doing it. Better than sitting on this office chair all day.

[pompidom 1]

You know what will work out surprising?

Walk to one of these Roma beggars and ask: "You speak english?".

:D

[Dafydd 30]

I believe they would find a warm welcome in Ulster :ph34r:

[tree* 26]

 

in Romania (where many come from) there are state-run schools and, legally, the kids are required to attend. Financing their stay in Germany only worsens the problem.

is that not also the case here?

[HAL9000 359]

 

You know what will work out surprising?

Walk to one of these Roma beggars and ask: "You speak english?".

Been there done that. Got spat on. No suprise.

 

I suppose one must understand how the project really works. The Roma bosses have large houses back home.They also have fantastic caravans and expensive cars. The people who you see on the street are the worker bees. They have a gang master in the group. The children they carry around are rented, bought or borrowed. The youngest are fed brandy and you will notice they are disposable props. If you can get me any evidence of one crying please post it on youtube and put the link here.

 

It's a rotten little slave system with every horror you can imagine. It breeds contempt and their aggression is based on the fact they get a beating if they don't bring enough back. They in turn will beat the other bees as it works it's way down the pyramid of pain.

 

One must understand that any money you give them will lead more of the people being enslaved that is why so many are being shipped in. Berlin is seen as a gold mine.

 

They have a rather large base in Ockerstr. NK. where the buses leave from in the mornings and where the bosses meet up in the street to exchange cars and, 'borrowed' goods or people. Check it out for yourself.

[KäptnKnitterbart 45]

Such a fine day to add a hal to the ignore list. I don't believe a word of that crap.

[Giles 37]

Whether one is a HAL-fan or not, I think that in this case he's right in most if not all respects. I don't know what the scene in Ockerstrasse is, but I do know - having personally witnessed it in Hamburg city centre some years ago - that it's not unusual for the miserably dressed woman + child "team" to be picked up at the end of a freezing day in a very large, shiny, dark blue Mercedes saloon and transported off to wherever the home base is. I feel moderately sorry for the women, broken-hearted for the kids and contempt for the fat-cat men behind the organisation. It's logical that every euro given will perpetuate and expand the operation.

 

Don't confuse begging with scamming. I give to beggars sometimes, but not to scammers. Or as someone else here suggested, if you must give something then give food.

 

Regards,

 

Giles

[dessa_dangerous 13,315]

 

My thoughts are; (and this is not meant to sound cynical or hard hearted), you need to stop thinking about this stuff so much, Berlin in winter is hard and depressing enough without piling the problems of the world on to your own plight.

 

I actually love winter in Berlin. But good advice nonetheless. Now I can focus on just being annoyed by being pestered for money every five seconds...

 

 

either that or just bark at them, the old walking home alone trick, bark to yourself, see how many approach you then.

 

I thought I was the only one who did that

 

 

self pity

 

not sure how tongue in cheek that was, but I suppose I can see why you might say that, as I didn't formulate my first rambling sentence correctly. It was meant to go something like "not only am I sitting here obviously not rich enough to finance your husband's silk shirt habit but you're treating the kid like shit too." I didn't get to the last bit until the next paragraph and I can see how it could have been misunderstood.

 

 

Give them food! somthing they can eat, and they must not turn in to their pimps (husbands)...

 

You know, I thought they were 100% scammers until they came and begged for money at a bbq we were having at Görli. My friend asked if she wanted something to eat, offered her an ear of corn. She motioned to the steaks on the grill, miming that she'd prefer the nice meat. When she was denied the meat, she did indeed take the corn and mauled it as if she hadn't eaten in years, although she was quite fat, and maybe just didn't have any table manners The same friend gave a beef skewer to a little girl who also seemed happy enough to have it. I dunno.

 

 

Also Alexanderplatz is a crap place to hang out. It is even worse than Leicester Square in London which is also a crap place to hang out and full of weirdos.

 

Alex is great when there are lots of people there--a good place to drink something and observe a fairly representative portion of everyone who passes through the city.

 

I have seen more weirdos than you've had hot meals by the sounds of it, by the way. Berlin's got more drunks, but my hometown's got 20x the number of crazy, crackhead, junkie, been-sleeping-on-the-streets-for-the-last-15-years-and-doesn't-seem-to-mind-it absolute degenerates than any spot in this place could complain about. People screaming at lightpoles, pulling down their pants and shitting on the middle of a busy street, religious fanatics shouting on the street corners, people openly smoking crack and injecting heroin in doorways, smoking blunts on the bus, not to mention all sorts of crazy explicit crap sexual minorities do in order to draw attention to their cause, I have seen it all baby and Alex ain't got nothing on that. But I'll keep it in mind the next time I invite you to hang out that you'd prefer not to chill there.

 

Besides, I like weirdos.

[Keefy 3,577]

 

Don't confuse begging with scamming. I give to beggars sometimes, but not to scammers.

Same with Strassenfeger sellers.

 

One or two have actually bothered to tell their audience what's in the paper, and on these occasions it was about things in which I was interested, so I bought a copy and was glad I did.

[blue78 254]

 

Same with Strassenfeger sellers.

 

One or two have actually bothered to tell their audience what's in the paper, and on these occasions it was about things in which I was interested, so I bought a copy and was glad I did.

your right Keefy my mistake... Strassenfeger sellers are making an honest wage.. If its what they want to do to survive then great! The point im making is if they made totally and completely no money doing it and no one ever bought one, the people would say 'this this pointless' and stop tommorrow..

 

Same with the Roma (speeek enngllishhh) ladies.. if it wasnt worth it in the long run they wouldnt be doing it.. I think every Euro given to them ends up in bad hands and in the end probably not theirs.. Lets buy them a coffee or something warm to eat.. but please do not give money in any way shape or form...

 

Thanks for listenin..

 

Blue

[Berlin-Brigade Mike 1]

I've heard (read) that many of them are bussed in from Eastern Block countries and spend the day/weekend and then are bussed back to their home country (after having divvied up the day's proceeds).