Austrian Firemen Turn Their Hoses on Syrian Refugee Kids, Warm Hearts Everywhere

All photos courtesy of Martin Peneder | FF-Feldkirchen

This article originally appeared on VICE Alps

Speaking at a recent summit in Brussels, the Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner announced that her country would soon stop processing new asylum requests, and that they wouldn’t be accepting any of the 40,000 refugees that the EU planned on redistributing across the continent. I know, it’s hard not to judge Austria right now.

But there’s also another Austria – one full of kind, loving, blond people who actually want to help and actively do so. A group of these people, for example, work voluntarily for Feldkirchen an der Donau’s fire department in Upper Austria. On Monday – when temperatures reached 36 degrees – they opened up their hoses in an attempt to cool down the 78, mostly Syrian, refugees who are currently being housed in the town’s vocational school.

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I gave Lukas Reisinger, a member of the volunteer fire department, a quick call to hear what it was all about: “We’d already brought them some clothes and food but, on Sunday, my family and I got to thinking about the weather. We wondered if they knew about the lake only two kilometres from the school. We decided we’d just bring the water to them, instead,” he said.

As for those who have been complaining that this was a waste of the town’s resources, Reisinger couldn’t care less: “Yes, those people exist. But you can’t put a price on a child’s smile.”