Free University of Berlin defends itself against refugee village on the university area

Free University of Berlin defends itself against refugee village on the university area

The property on Thielallee 63 in Berlin-Dahlem, which is currently being used as a parking lot, has an area of ​​around 4000 to 5000 square meters. The Senate plans to build a container village for 260 refugees on this site, but this leads to protests. In particular within the Free University, there is resistance because the university intends to build a building for teaching and research there. The President of the Free University, Günter Ziegler, stated that they had only experienced from the newspapers about the Senate plans and that the university management did not agree to this measure.

Free University of Berlin has already helped in the past to accommodate refugees in the short term. This support was made, among other things, by providing an emergency accommodation in the university sports hall in winter 2014 and 2015. However, the university emphasized that the site is urgently needed for its own construction projects after 2023. The university proposed to use empty buildings of the Federal Real Estate Agency at the Thielallee 92 location for the accommodation of refugees.

The special representative for refugee questions at the Senate, Broemme, emphasizes the possibility of temporarily accommodating refugees on fallow areas such as the Uniwelände. The discussion about the creation of further accommodations for refugees is present in Berlin, since 16 additional container villages were decided by the Senate at the end of March. This measure aims to mitigate the lack of living space for refugees and to relieve the emergency accommodation of the former airports Tegel and Tempelhof.

The planned container villages are mainly built in the eastern part of the city, with most of the Lichtenberg, Pankow and Treptow-Köpenick districts. The decision to create a container village on the site of the Free University in Steglitz-Zehlendorf is met with resistance, which is also discussed on the Internet. Critics question why an institution like the FU Berlin, which presents itself as cosmopolitan, has difficulty providing accommodation for refugees. Despite the controversial discussions, the challenge remains to create appropriate living space for refugees in Berlin.