A Holocaust Memorial Follows a Politician Home
BORNHAGEN, Germany — No one in the village saw it coming, least of all Björn Höcke, a quiet and well-liked local father of four who also happens to be Germany’s most notorious far-right politician.
Last January, at a rally in Dresden, Mr. Höcke questioned the guiding precept of modern Germany — the country’s culpability in World War II and the Holocaust — calling on Germans to make a “180 degree” turn in the way they viewed their history.
Germans were “the only people in the world to plant a monument of shame in the heart of their capital,” he said, referring to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Ecuador may embrace the pro“We face shared threats from drug And then, recently, Mr. Höcke gram, but other allies say the foreign smugglers, terrorists and human woke up to find the Holocaust reach is a stretch. traffickers, and we could do things memorial outside his bedroom
In Germany, some lawmakers over the phone,” said Ralph Goodale, window, rebuilt to scale. The only have questioned the department’s Canada’s public safety minister. “But difference: The slabs had been rocounterterrorism Immigration Adthere are real advantages to being tated 180 degrees. visory Program, where travelers at able to meet and talk to people face “We wanted to remind Mr. foreign airports are investigated by to face.” Höcke that he can turn German plainclothes Customs and Border In Tanzania, Immigration and history however much he likes, it Protection officers before they are Customs Enforcement investigadoesn’t change,” said Philipp Ruch, allowed to board flights to the Unittors were accused in May of using co-founder of a Berlin-based artist ed States. An American government “Mafia- style” tactics for helping to collective known as the Center for report found that 8,100 people were extradite suspects accused of drug Political Beauty. kept from traveling in 2015. smuggling to the United States. Mr. Höcke, a history teacher
Andrej Hunko, a member of GerIn South Africa, special agents turned local chief of the Alternative many’s Left Party, said the actions who are stationed at the United for Germany, or AfD, has called amount to an extrajudicial travel States Embassy in Pretoria have Bornhagen, a village of 309 inhabban and accused the United States of gone after drug smugglers, wildlife itants on the former border of East moving its “immigration controls to traffickers and Nigerian scammers. and West Germany, his “refuge” European countries.” The agents are among 300 investigaand “locus of inspiration.”
Canadians f looded their prime tors in nearly 50 countries. The far-right AfD won 34 percent minister’s office in August with letSteve R. Martin, the special agent of the vote in Bornhagen during ters and emails protesting legislation in charge in Pretoria, said the unit’s recent elections, more than twice to allow American customs officers role in a recent operation to arrest the national average. But neighstationed at Canadian airports and the accused Tanzanian drug smugbors are neighbors. Supporters of train stations to question, search and gler Ali Khatib Haji Hassan is a case the left-leaning Greens go hunting detain Canadian citizens. The meain point. Investigators began lookwith AfD voters here. Recent refusure passed last month. More than ing into Mr. Hassan in 2012, after a gees live peacefully in the village, 400 Homeland Securitytoo.employeesmemberofhisgroupwasarrestedat are stationed in Canada — the most a Houston, Texas, airport. How should Germans deal with of any foreign country. The United States claims that Mr. the rise of the far right, now that Hassan ran a global drug smuggling organization that obtained large quantities of heroin from sources in Pakistan and Iran, and cocaine from South American suppliers. Some of the drugs ended up on the streets in American cities and were traced back to Mr. Hassan’s organization. Mr. Hassan and two associates were arrested by Tanzanian authorities; all three men were extradited to the United States and are awaiting trial.
“You have to be on the ground and have the relationships with local law enforcement for this kind of case,” Mr. Martin said. “You can’t just parachute in.” an openly nationalist party has entered Parliament for the first time since World War II?
For Mr. Ruch and his fellow artists, the answer is clear: People like Mr. Höcke deserve “not one millimeter.”
“He broke the mother of all taboos, he challenged the founding narrative of modern Germany and he got away with it,” said Mr. Ruch.
The artists erected a tent to put together the replica memorial while shielded from view. “Aggressive humanists,” the artists call themselves. “Terrorists,” Mr. Höcke calls them.
In recent weeks, school classes
In Germany, artists confront a far-right leader at his home.
came to visit the memorial, farright opponents slashed the tires of cars parked outside the site, and far-left supporters held an anti-fascist march. Death threats have been traded.
Overnight, said Silvia Rinke, a tour guide who has voted for the left-leaning Greens all her life, “we have become the Nazi village.”
Children are asking “why people are being mean to Mr. Höcke,” Ms. Rinke said. Her son goes to school with his children. “How do you even begin to explain this?”
But that, said Susanne Prinz, a 30-year- old farmer and a site volunteer, is the point of the memorial: to force people to take a stance.
“Yes, it’s uncomfortable,” Ms. Prinz said. “But then, Germany’s history is uncomfortable.”