Rubber Island

As the rubber part of the island of Giessen West town is called. Because of its location near the Lahn with flooding and the previously largest local employer, the rubber factory Poppe & Co., the area in which the factory workers lived was called a rubber island. The area was then isolated from the rest of the city on the opposite side of the river Lahn. Even today, the area can be clearly distinguishable from the rest of the city (West ) by its physical structure.

The residential area was built 1932-1939 as a settlement of small two-storey red brick house without a basement, each with a small front yard. They were built as emergency housing for families Yenish trader - regional foreign name " Mäckeser " - showman, second-hand dealers and descendants regional Sinti families.

Later, these houses were renovated, partially demolished, replaced by high-rise buildings of social housing and extends the residential area to the west city. As far as they still exist, they are now owned by the municipal housing company, Housing casting GmbH.

The rubber island was and is as a social focal point. The name of the neighborhood had a disparaging tone. The population structure of the area is still (as of 31 December 2012) characterized by a high concentration of low-income and socially disadvantaged households and by a large ethnic diversity.

The western city is much like the similarly structured problem quarters of Margaretenhütte to children richest districts casting. The proportion of households living with social benefits at subsistence level is very high. Due to the loss of jobs in manufacturing exist for people in the west city little chance of employment. For part of the person concerned, this means permanent unemployment and chronic poverty. In the last time there was an increased influx of families with an immigrant background. This aggravates integration and tolerance problems between age of incumbent poverty, substandard new poverty and immigrant groups.

Under the influence of the student movement emerged citizens' groups, who took care of the misery in this suburban district, and especially the many large families offered support. Community work in the district and extensive building renovations defused the social focal point. Since the early 1970s the city tried casting the continued isolation and impending impoverishment through urban planning measures - influx of other population groups - to counteract. About the inhabitants of this district turned the ZDF in its series ZDF.reportage a movie (title: German Desperados ). Of the inhabitants of it was rejected. They looked misrepresented.

The project group Margaretenhütte eV making since the early 1970s in the residential Henriette Fürth- road community work. The association followed a group of volunteers who got together in the 1960s from residents, students and citizens of the city of Giessen, to change the housing and living conditions in the focus fundamentally.

Within the traditional neighborhood residents, both the rubber and the island Margaretenhütte was at least to the 1980s, a strongly from Romanes coined, referred to as manic sociolect common. Today, the Manic likely only be found in relics and have its original character largely lost as a secret language. With the peripheral settlement owls (casting North-East) is to call a third social focus, in the manic geraggert ( = spoken) is.

Literature and Media

• Social Service Agency casting (ed.): The western town, creepy and colorful. An investment project in the context of community work Watering -West. Giessen 2004.
• Hans -Günther Lerch: " chu lowi ". The Manic in Giessen. The secret language of a marginalized social group, their history and sociological backgrounds. Giessen 1976. ISBN 978-3-89687-485-6
• Fritz Neuschäfer: The history of the " Jenischen " and " manic " in Gießen. In: Manfred H. Klös (Ed. ): A piece of Giessen history. Pour undated (1988 ), pp. 51-55.
• Marc Wiese ( Director ), Heiner Gatzemeier (ed. ): German desperadoes. The village of Schrottler, showman and hawker. . (VHS, 30 minutes) 1998