For Syrian refugees, eastern Germany is not the safe place they imagined

Majdi Khatun, a refugee from Lebanon and a father of two, at his window in Clausnitz, in Saxony, eastern Germany on September 28, 2016. A year after they arrived in Germany some refugees say they have experienced so much animosity that they are contemplating leaving. John MacDougall / AFPShow less

FREITAL, GERMANY // One had a beer bottle hurled at him on a train. Another was woken at midnight by three men holding wooden planks ringing his doorbell. A third had her headscarf pulled off by a stranger in the spree

A year after they arrived in Germany as refugees from war, some Syrians say they have experienced so much animosity that they are contemplating leaving.

The trouble is, they have landed in the state of Saxony which was part of the old East Germany and is now a flashpoint zone for racist crimes linked to the Islamophobic Pegida movement.

“It’s too scary here,” said Fares Kassas, the victim of the bottle attack on the train “The man threw the bottle just as the door was closing and the train left the station. There was nothing I could do. ” He has refugee status in Germany but is now thinking of leaving for Turkey, where his parents are living.

Mohammad Alkhodari said he avoids going out after 6pm ever since a car load of men threatened to beat him up. He managed to run away. “I am so stressed that I have developed a stomach problem,” he said.

In Saxony, the number of far-right crimes, including assaults against asylum seekers and arson at refugee homes, tripled to 784 last year compared with 235 in 2014. Freital, where Mr Kassas and Mr Alkhodari live, was the scene of anti-migrant demonstrations a year ago.

The area is linked to two neo-Nazi groups that plotted attacks against refugees but were dismantled by security forces last year.

In a report last month taking stock of the 25 years since German reunification, the government warned that growing xenophobia and right-wing extremism now threaten peace in eastern Germany.

“Eastern states are bad states for refugees. It’s hard to find apartments. There are no jobs and no contact with locals,” said Mr Alkhodari, a dental hygienist who wants to move to western Germany.

The arrival of 890,000 refugees last year has polarised Germany, and hostility against the newcomers runs especially deep in eastern states such as Saxony.

The former East Germany has become fertile ground for the far right, with unemployment fuelling resentment and xenophobia.

“They should all just disappear,” said a man in his fifties, when asked what he thought of the refugees in Saxony.

Enrico Schwarz, who runs an association in Freital that has been helping Mr Kassas and Mr Alkhodari, said “latent racism and latent right-wing radicalism” has always existed in German society, but “at this time of the refugee movement, they have become bolder. They feel threatened by other migrants arriving now.”

He said eastern Germans were more susceptible to xenophobia because many felt like migrants in a new country when East And West Germany reunited in 1990. Right-wing extremists are capitalising on those fears with arguments over migrants taking jobs or driving up health insurance. The line between those stirring up hate and those who are simply worried about their future is becoming blurred.

“Who is the ‘concerned citizen’, and who is the violent citizen? Who is the extremist citizen and who is the one who only has fears? It’s no longer so clear,” said Mr Schwarz.

Erdmute Gustke, pastor at a church in Heidenau — another Saxony village hit by violent anti-refugee demonstrations — said some saw the migrant influx as another unwanted change affecting their lives.

“There is a feeling of ‘leave us in peace, we’ve only just found our way after reunification and now we’re facing something new again,’” she said.

Social media has also raised the expression of hatred for foreigners to a “new level”, said refugee aid volunteer Marc Lalonde. “Before this social media explosion, people were probably racist but they kept it to themselves,” he said. “Now they see they are not alone.”

Mr Lalonde helps out weekly at a small village that few had heard of before February. But Clausnitz gained notoriety after a bus carrying refugees was mobbed.

“They shouted things like ‘we will kill you’. They were drunk. We were so scared,” said Afghan asylum seeker Sadia Azizi.

Six months on, two dozen refugees still living there complain of isolation as most locals have kept a distance and only German is spoken.

“There is no one to talk to,” said Lebanese asylum seeker Majdi Khatun.

Some however have made an effort to reach out.

Khatun’s son Luai, 15, spoke of schoolmates who help with homework or lend him notes to copy when the teacher’s German is too rapid for him.

“There are no Nazis here,” Luai said. An elderly lady, who calls herself “Luai’s German grandma” brings him cakes and jam.

Mr Lalonde admitted it was “discouraging” that such kindnesses were often overshadowed by xenophobia.

“But I get motivated when I hear about a new attack because it means we have more work to do,” he said. “And we can’t give up.”

* Agence France-Presse