GOP Want to Create “Safe Zones” for Syrian Refugees

Granted, life in a war zone is horrific, but life in a refugee camp isn’t so great either. We spent most of seven years in Germany after the war (WWII) as refugees living in various camps where in the better ones, we share a room the size of a large classroom with three other families. The room was divided into four areas by army blankets strung on wires. Our section had just enough room for two cots, one for Mom and Dad and one for my sister and I and a wall locker. In the next section lived a couple with a son and a nephew who was around 10 years old. Toward the end of the war the Nazis executed his mother and father right in front of him. He was very traumatized and would have nightmares almost nightly which we could clearly hear through our blanket wall. The entire floor shared one bathroom and there was a separate bathing area for the entire building much as one would find in a gym. For kids this was not too hard. But one time more recently, I was at an airport and our flight was delayed. I was sitting around and started thinking about what the life of my parents as adult refugees must have been like. It occurred to me that it had to be like waiting for a flight at an airport for several years. How awful! There is no work. There is very little entertainment. There is no comfort, only waiting endlessly. Not to mention the anxiety of not knowing if you can ever be granted asylum or return to your home. So those of you who think that herding people into camps is such a great deed, go spend a weekend at an airport waiting for a flight and imagine doing that not for two but for one thousand days.