Finally, a smiling official offers a polite “Welcome to Austria.” A row of new buses waits at the border for the refugees heading to Germany. No shouting, no tensions. Austrian volunteers greet the migrants with fruit, pastries and tea. The travelers don’t know how to thank them. Doctors, the Red Cross, happy faces, hot food, everything they haven’t had for months. The xenophobia evaporated. They board a train for Germany with clean clothes, almost sleep through Munich and arrive in Frankfurt, where no one is waiting for them. They leave the station and walk out into the crowd. “Seems like we’ve finally reached Europe,” a young Iraqi man tells Javier Bauluz. (Read this chapter)
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