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Unlike in 1990s, Germany welcoming migrants warmly

Throngs of people turn out with toys, food, applause

Dima, a 5-year-old from Syria, smiled with a new toy in Munich on Monday.ANGELIKA WARMUTH/EPA

BERLIN — Crowds greet trainloads of migrants with applause, candy, and toys. A provincial town’s mayor wants to take in more refugees. Top conservative politicians say Germany needs young immigrants.

It’s a contrast with a frosty reception when migrant arrivals in Germany last spiked in the 1990s and mainstream politicians rushed to tighten asylum rules, while the country’s top-selling newspaper asked: ‘‘The flood is rising — when will the boat sink?’’

Germany expects 800,000 migrants to arrive this year, nearly twice the previous record.

And while attacks on homes for refugees and anti-migrant protests have caused widespread alarm, the broader atmosphere has been strikingly welcoming — illustrated by the weekend’s euphoric scenes in stations from Bavarian metropolis Munich to provincial Saalfeld in which throngs of Germans greeted migrants.

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The previous record dates back to 1992, when nearly 440,000 asylum-seekers came as the former Yugoslavia disintegrated — coinciding with a spate of anti-foreigner attacks that shamed Germany.

In perhaps the most notorious incident back then, days of rioting in the eastern city of Rostock saw far-right extremists throw firebombs and stones at a center for refugees, then at a neighboring apartment block inhabited by Vietnamese immigrants, as bystanders cheered.

In contrast to the Bild daily’s 1992 headline about a sinking boat, the newspaper today has taken a pro-refugee line.

A recent Sunday edition led with seven pages of supportive messages from prominent Germans under the headline ‘‘100 voices against hatred of refugees.’’

‘‘We stood on the edge of a moral abyss . . . and we have moved on as a society,’’ said Christoph Rass, an expert on contemporary history at the University of Osnabrueck’s Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies.

Ordinary Germans have pitched in lately to help refugees. Many went over the weekend to Munich’s main station, bringing everything from water to toiletries, as trains with refugees arrived.

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On Sunday, police tweeted that no more donations were needed at the station, then called for people to donate men’s clothing and shoes to a city refugee shelter.

Within three hours, no more of those were needed either.

Chancellor Angela Merkel says she is ‘‘proud and grateful to see how countless people in Germany are reacting to the arrival of the refugees.’’

■  Australia: In Australia on Monday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said his country will resettle a ‘‘significant’’ number of refugees from Syria this year, while the opposition called for an additional 10,000 refugee places to help the world cope with a humanitarian crisis.

Abbott told Parliament he would have more to say about numbers on Tuesday after Immigration Minister Peter Dutton reports from meetings with the United Nation refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration in Geneva and Paris about the refugee crisis from Syria.

‘‘It is the government’s firm intention to take a significant number of people from Syria this year,’’ Abbott said. ‘‘The women and children in camps, in particular the women and children from persecuted minorities in camps, they deserve a compassionate response from Australia and that is exactly what they will get from this government.’’

■  Greece: Thousands of migrants are mired in despair, anger, and frustration on the scenic Greek island of Lesbos, which was supposed to be the first stop on their journey to Western Europe.

After perilous sea voyages from neighboring Turkey, they have been stranded for days, some for nearly two weeks, running out of money and desperate to get to mainland Greece to continue their route.

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The island of some 100,000 residents has been transformed by the sudden new population of some 20,000 migrants, mostly from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Fights break out among migrants as they wait in long lines for hours in the heat and endure days without showers.

‘‘We escaped from ruin to be met with more ruin here,’’ said Mohammed Salama, a 45-year-old Syrian.