No one will do anything in hotel ‘t Elshuys tonight

They have lived here for five months now. The family of six, from Syria, is sitting under the awning, around a table in front of hotel ‘t Elshuys in Albergen. Father Radwan (48), mother Fatima (44), and their daughters aged 11 and 18, and two sons aged 14 and 19. They look at what is happening in front of them, on the normally quiet Gravendijk.

On the Gravendijk on Wednesday afternoon around 4 p.m. about twenty men gathered. Most of them are teenagers and twenty-somethings from the village. Tractors block the access road to the hotel. There is no police.

The Twente youngsters are busy with chipboards and markers. A red forklift truck in the middle of the street. What they’re doing here “is pretty obvious,” says Ben (59), one of the few older men in the group. He doesn’t want to be in the newspaper with his last name. There are chipboard signs at the hotel. “What are you doing to our beautiful village?” ‘Keep Albergen clean!’

With a lot of creaking, the forklift drives over the hedge that separates the terrace from the parking spaces. The arm of the vehicle extends directly above the heads of the family on the terrace. Fatima stands up and moves aside. There are two boys in the shovel with a sign: ‘Soon there will be 10 percent of immigrants. Can we still live here safely?? No asylum seekers’ center in our beautiful Albergen.’ The loud noise of a drill is heard as the board bolts right above the heads of the family. Fatima sits down again. She blinks her eyes slowly to hold back her tears.

Hotel owner leaves

On Tuesday evening, the municipality of Tubbergen, to which Albergen belongs, was completely attacked by a call from State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum Affairs, VVD). Tubbergen is the first municipality in the Netherlands to be obliged to accommodate asylum seekers: an asylum seekers’ center with room for three hundred people will be built in hotel ‘t Elshuys. An hour later, Van der Burg sends a letter with this message to the House.

When local residents hear about it, they gather in front of the hotel with a club of about 150 people. Fireworks are set off, music is played and beer is drunk. Regional newspaper The Gelderlander describes the atmosphere as ‘comfortable’. The owner of the hotel has meanwhile left for the night by order of the police. Villagers blame her for not informing the village.

In April this year, COA entered into talks with the municipality about the reception of asylum seekers. He said he saw nothing in a large location of 150 to 300 people, said mayor Wilmien Haverkamp-Wenker (non-party) and responsible alderman Ursula Bekhuis-Groothuis (Municipality Interests/VVD) at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. “We always try to talk to our residents,” says Bekhuis-Groothuis. “If you are treated differently by a fellow government, it makes you angry. And it causes a lot of anxiety.” COA says it has been in talks with the municipality for months, but has not received any cooperation.

“Today our concern is: the residents,” says the alderman. “We have to be there for them.” Only then will the municipality look at how further; In any case, 300 asylum seekers in a village of just over 3,500 inhabitants seems too much for the municipality.

Just before the press conference, the mayor and aldermen at the town hall talked to the neighborhood. “I have a good feeling about it,” says Ben Boerrigter (63) for the town hall. Boerrigter lives directly opposite the hotel. He now also realizes that the municipality has really been robbed. “They don’t want this either. 300 people is not in proportion.” He was not bothered at all by the families who now live there, he says.

“The news was circulated in a neighborhood app yesterday,” says Julian Nijenhuis (53). “Yeah, scary,” he says. He did not go to the protest in the evening, but first wanted to get the facts straight. He read a report on Tuesday evening about nuisance caused by asylum seekers’ centres. “Then you worry.” He does not understand why the local government, “which has much more with its residents”, cannot decide this. “Does Van der Burg know where Albergen is?”

Does State Secretary Van der Burg know where Albergen is located?

Julian Nijenhuis angry Tubberger

Used to explosions

Back at the hotel, after the press conference. Hotel owner Maria Olde Heuvel absolutely does not want to answer questions. It’s going “bad,” she says. The phone rings every few minutes. Meanwhile, she prepares dinner for the few guests who haven’t left yet. No one is going to stay asleep tonight.

Lana (11), the daughter of Fatima and Radwan, runs down the corridor in her checked trousers and shirt with horses. Her braid dances on her back. “We have room 29”, she says proudly in Dutch. She translates for her parents. Her father uses a translation app on his phone.

She opens the door to their room. There is a table and the bed where Fatima and Radwan sleep. In the room a staircase leads to a small upper floor with the beds of the four children. Lana was shocked by the fireworks yesterday, she says. The others were less impressed. Radwan turns his phone over to which it says: ‘We are used to explosions’. Mother Fatima comes in with Praxis moving boxes. Suddenly everyone is moving. Daughter Hala (18) unfolds the boxes. Fatima puts toilet paper in a bag. They have to go, as a precaution.

Also read: How the government can force the municipality of Tubbergen to provide asylum

Roselien Slagers (63) from Vluchtelingenwerk comes to fetch them. She calls in the lounge corner of the hotel, looking for a new place to stay for the family that has gathered with their belongings in the large armchairs next to her.

Butchers sees the protest growing through the curtains. Some have crates of beer with them. Two police officers enter the hotel. They think that outsiders have also come to the protest and advise everyone not to stay the night. Butchers hands out ice creams inside. It is stuffy and the windows have to stay closed. “This has nothing to do with you,” she tells the family several times. “People are angry. They are afraid that 300 people will come here.” Radwan holds his phone in front of her to translate it.

Cars drive past. Local residents film the hotel. Maria Olde Heuvel kisses an affected Fatima on her cheeks. „Good luck”, she says. The family goes to a new hotel in Hengelo through a side entrance.

A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of August 18, 2022