Re: Euro-Immigrants

From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>

> In Giessen and the general Frankfurt-am-Main area, US
> GIs are not warned about gangs of drunken
> anti-American Slavs, Viets, or Koreans.  We _are_
> given briefings about the Turks

> So in 2 years in FRG, I was vaguely aware of other
> immigrants, but Turks were a major factor in planning
> weekends so they were made an impression.

a) The numbers
b) They stick together
c) They take insults poorly - even imagined ones.

OTOH as an Australian who ran afoul of a Turk ( he thought
I'd tripped him) just outside a Turkish-German club, as soon
as the gathered mob realised I was Australian, all they did was
ask me if I knew Cousin Abdul in Sydney or Aunt Maryam in Melbourne...
and we commiserated with each other that you couldn't get more than
a half-decent Kebab anywhere in Bremen and that in a GREEK shop,
Beetroot dip was unknown, and the Halva sucked. All in broken German.
No they weren't knife-wielding maniacs, just thought that I was
one of the few xenophobic ratbags they had to deal with every day.
At no time was I in any danger, they just wanted to make sure I
wasn't a threat to them, out to firebomb the club etc. Which had
happened a few months before.