Arrival in Germany (guest post)
My dear freind Charlotte Misselwitz who has worked as a journalist in Israel, Palestine and Russia is now back working in her home town of Berlin. She joined us in the Anti-Nazi demo on Mayday.
Hello friends in Russia, Israel and Palestine,
We beat them! This is what I told my colleague from the politics desk, after having come back from the Anti-Neonazi demonstration in Erfurt this first of May. The thin, tall super model type turns her beautiful head striking her dark long hair out of her face. She gives me one of her usual radiant and irritated smiles. Of course, surrounded by the morning light, the amazing view over the city from the rooftop palace that we share as an office, words like Nazi, demonstration or even Erfurt (a town in Southern Germany) are ghosts for her. They make her shiver but at the same time they don’t belong to reality. So I spare her the rest, just say there were 600 Neonazis from all over Germany and about 2000 regional demonstrators. And her world is back in order.
That the long announced march by the Nazis didn’t even reach more than 100 meters, because they were blocked from us, I didn’t tell.
Also that when within the blockade the frustrated Nazis started to throw something, the police immediately withdrew their licence to demonstrate. I didn’t tell that because ‘we beat them’ is actually a lie. They beat me.
Here in Germany, for the first time after 1,5 years of travelling and looking at the most vulnerable spots in Israel, Palestine and Russia, I had felt like an adventure tourist. Never did I ask myself why I was going to the other spots. Even though I almost fainted when I looked at the dead face of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaja.
Listening to people in Palestine and Israel who had lost their dear ones always made me look for something to sit down. Walking through the charred school halls of Beslan in North Ossetia where 300 people, mostly children died, was hitting the limit though. I felt horrible when the driver who took us there, started to cry and ran out. There were countless more events. But never did I ask myself before or after if I had indulged to some voyeuristic desire.
With the plan to go to Erfurt, I did. Because it’s my country and I can only look at vulnerable spots of others? I certainly had grown detached from the place, still took time to arrive in Germany. Things seemed unreal, not comparatively serious. I started to refuse to believe that Neonazis are scary. I had started to think that they only exist if you give them attention - like this Homi Bhabha
philosophy: to exist is to be called into being in relation to an otherness.
It was warm where the sun was shining but freezing in the shadows.
With a group of about 10 people, among which I was the only “real”
German, we were standing on the platform in Weimar waiting for the train to Erfurt. Jokes about Nazis where on their best level, when two highly armed policemen walked up to us. Very nicely, they “recommended” to not get on the coming train, as there were “clients from the other side supposed to be on it”. I immediately understood.
But no one else. Running back and forth between them I explained that even if they “look normal” or are from Italy or English-speaking, they are for the Neonazis part of the ‘globalized enemy’. Eventually the group agreed to wait for the next train - only 10 mins later anyhow.
But just before our supposed train was slowly entering the station, a few radical left wingers got on the platform. With their beer bottles, skin heads and militant uniform, at first I thought they were Nazis. But also our four Italian lefties could be confused with them, if you don’t look for the red scarf or other kinds of utensils.
Without words these 2 groups connected within seconds and suddenly everyone was standing back on the platform. Ready to get on the incoming train. I remember my Israeli friend Ronen saying “Look, now we are a big group, now its fine”. Struck in awe I shouted at him “Like this you are not only asking for trouble, you are going to get killed!” But no one listened. I felt like Kassandra. The train came.
Within splits of seconds seeing the lives of every single person passing by in front of my inner eye. The funny tall blonde Newsealand guy, the quiet dark turkish artist, the nice greece girl with the big blue eyes, Ronen… my heart was beating like hell, but nothing sensible I could do. The last thing I remember was how all my senses suddenly focused on Sebastian, the tall, strong ‘leader’ of our Italian communist group. I wish I would have done something.
From the corner of my eye I saw them. Their uniforms, tattoos sticking to the glass of the windows of the train. It was packed. I felt it, without looking, packed with brutality and hate. But my focus was on Sebastian. Was I going to ran up to him, yell at him or beg him? I’m afraid I would have just stood paralyzed and gotten on the train too. Then suddenly he yelled: “Run!” And within a second the whole group was running past me down the stairs, off the platform. Out of eyesight of the Nazis. I couldn’t move. Shaking, just leaned on the wall behind me. One of the police officers walked up to me. “Are you connected to these people?” I looked down on the little group, within the green circle of 10 heavyly armed policemen.
I never thought I would be so happy about a picture where my friends are surrounded by police. I nodded, ready to take any annoying advise to go home, to not affiliate with people like this. He said: “Can you please tell your friends to not get on the train? We are not allowed to forbid, but you must tell them.” I turned to him, with the a smile and said half crying: “Didn’t you see? They ran themselves!” These words came out like the greatest news, like “a miracle happened”.
Only then did I dare to look at the train. It started moving. I saw the white and black of the clothes of the Neonazis passing by. They scared me as hell. I didn’t want to take them seriously? They exist anyhow. And even if in small numbers, they are the vulnerable spot of this country. They beat me. I arrived, finally arrived in Germany.
“Actually I’m not scared of Nazis. They are harmless and we really have a foreigner problem.” Back in the rooftop palace Dianas smile - yes, thats really her name - changes to naive and nice. She is good at that. Playing the innocent. I no longer argue with her, I get too upset. She just spoke in Russian so the new intern cannot understand.
(He is on a lower level than us in salary and qualification, as she let him know the first day he arrived) No, she is amazing though.
Unlike me, she perfectly fits into the rooftop working place. She publishes 3 times more than me. Having studied in Harvard, doing Law in Germany, with a Russian father and an American mother, she speaks
3 languages fluently. Her career is totally set up. And she loves talking about it and talking others into it. She wants me to apply for the “New Yorker” - “Its the perfect newspaper for you! Good salary for interns, you need to learn writing in English. And we could share an apartment!” But I know why she is doing all that. She wants me to join her club as a ‘globalised girl’. She is trying hard on me. Even though I recently almost broke her heart when I turned down her offer to go horse riding…
If she only knew that I’m already a member. But I guess, there are different clubs within the same realm. I still like to think of it more in terms of Wassili. (Sorry, those of you, who didn’t get my Roundmail after I got to Russia: The 50year old man I had met on the train to Moscow. As a German Russian with a Polish wife, the working class men spoke also 3 languages, was living and working in 3 countries - he is what Sociology calls a “nomad”) We’ll see where I’ll be going. Maybe its neither Wassili nor Diana. Just want you all to know: This is the end of my travel year, but its not the end of my connection to your worlds. Even if I have finally arrived in Germany.
Charlotte