Refugees in Germany have a problem. Or rather, the people of Germany, it would seem, have a problem with refugees.

Xenophobic demonstrations, arson attacks on asylum-seeker shelters, and other ugly racist incidents — like the drunken neo-Nazis who urinated on immigrant children in the Berlin metro last month — have sparked a fierce, wide-ranging debate in Germany and internationally about the country’s willingness and ability to deal with immigrants fleeing war and poverty.

Responses to the crisis have been mixed: hundreds of right-wingers laying siege to a shelter full of terrified asylum-seekers in the Saxon town of Heidenau represents perhaps the ugliest side of Germany’s response thus far, but at the same time, thousands of volunteers have shown solidarity and compassion, mobilizing a wide range of projects to welcome and assist incoming refugees.