Open letter to the Berlin Senator for the Interior, Ehrhart Körting, and the Minister of the Interior for Lower Saxony, Uwe Schünemann

Dear Senator Körting,

Dear Minister Schünemann,

Germany´s children and young people - German immigrants from former German territories, immigrants and long-time residents - are celebrating with black-red-gold flags in all towns of Germany - the great international football events. While German politicians of all parties are celebrating, our 17 ministers of the interior, also in these days and weeks, are continuing the unworthy "game" of deporting children and young people who were born in Germany or who have grown up here for many years. These young people speak German as their mother tongue like you and I do, they go to our kindergartens, schools and universities, their parents have lived in our country for many years or even for decades.

You also deplore the increasing lack of children in Germany. How about granting those children and young people, pupils and students, whose home is really this country, the certificate of residence which gives them security in the country which has long become their home? Is this not the most sensible thing to do?

Instead of this you stick to a paragraph, take up the time of offices for foreigners, the courts and the police with chasing out of the country families whose fate was sealed ten or fifteen years before.

Social workers, kindergarten workers, teachers, ministers of religion and voluntary carers for refugees have worked for years for the integration of these people. Their children have long been not only integrated, but also assimilated in language and culture.

Dear Minister Schünemann, the 44-year old Niazi Sulejmanovic has spent 30 years of this life in Göttingen. Now the authorities want to deport him, his wife and eight of their nine children to Serbia. Sulejmanovic came as the child of migrant workers with long-term residence permits to Göttingen, he completed his Abitur at evening school with very good marks and married in 1987. Five years later the whole family converted to the Roman Catholic faith. The authorities with the appropriate competence in Göttingen refused however in spite of the baptismal certificates to register the new Christian names of the children in the records.

But the family had previously spent four years in Serbia. They had gone there in 1987 because Sulejmanocic was not in a fit mental condition to resist the pressure of the office for foreigners. When he was called up to fight the aggressive war for the Serbs he refused and fled back to Germany, where his family was issued with a temporary residence permit. He himself tried to pursue his life goal and took up the study of ethnology, politics and information technology at the University of Göttingen.

Dear Minister, the Sulejmanovic family is fully integrated here. The children speak German as their mother tongue, not only at school, but also at home. In Serbia they have no connections. Sulejmanovic is meanwhile mentally ill and the uncertainty and fear of being expelled is aggravatinghis condition. His wife is also becoming a nervous wreck and is undermedical treatment. The father of Mr Sulejmanovic also lives in Göttingen. He has a certificate of residence and following a stroke he is dependent of the help of his son. It is only a residence permit which can give this family any stability. Please help these people and tell the office for foreigners in Göttingen to withdraw this threat of deportation!

Dear Senator Körting, the four "orphan children" Dusko ( born 17.01.1997), Angelina (born 06.12.1993), Milan (born 30.09.1991) and Dajana Vasic (born 21.07.1990) are from a refugee family which came to Berlin in 1991. Dajana and her brother Milan were then still babies. Dusko and Angelina were born in Berlin. All four go to school in Berlin. The single mother Hanusa Vasic was in spite of her certified schizophrenia placed in an aeroplane and deported to Sarayevo. A year has now passed and the mother has evidently disappeared. The uncle of the children, a clerk in Berlin and a German citizen named Milos Sitz, and the grandfather, Milos Sitz, look after the four children. The Berlin County Court Tiergarten appointed Milos Sitz guardian on 12.05.2005. The Youth Office of Neukölln made a report on 13.04.2005 stating that there were no objections to the grandfather being appointed guardian. He had come to Germany 30 years ago as a migrant worker and lives here with a certificate of permanent residence.

Dear Senator, there is no convincing argument for denying these children residence certificates, children who are being cared for by grandfather and uncle and whose legal guardian has been appointed by a Berlin court. It is sad enough that the mother was deported to Bosnia. The children speak German as their mother tongue. Removing them from the country would be deportation.

Dear Minister, dear Senator, many people suffered dreadfully during the Nazi dictatorship, if they survived at all. At the end of the Second World War millions of Germans experienced the fate of flight and deportation. For this reason the Lower Saxon and the Berlin offices for foreigners should not drive children and young people who have long become Germans out of the country which has become their home. We earnestly beg you to withdraw the threat of deportation against the four Vasic children in Berlin and against the Sulejmanovic family in Göttingen.

Yours Sincerely,

Tilman Zülch, General Secretary