Syrians facing hatred in east Germany think of leaving

FREITAL (Germany): One had a beer bottle flung at him on a train. Another was woken at midnight as three men holding wooden slats rang his doorbell. A third had her headscarf pulled off by a stranger in the street.

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

The trouble is, they have landed in the eastern state of Saxony – a flashpoint zone home to the Islamophobic PEGIDA movement that has seen a spate of racist hate crimes.

“It’s too scary here,” said Fares Kassas, victim of the train aggression.

“The man threw the bottle just as the door was closing and the train left the station. There was nothing I could do,” said Kassas, who has obtained refugee status in Germany but is now contemplating leaving for Turkey, where his parents are living.

Mohammad Alkhodari, who spoke of a car that pulled up next to him with men preparing to beat him before he ran away, said he avoids going out after 6pm.

“I am so stressed that I have developed a stomach problem,” he said.

Both Kassas and Alkhodari are in the town of Freital, scene of antimigrant 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.

“Eastern states are bad states for refugees.

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

The arrival of 890,000 refugees last year has deeply polarised Germany, and misgivings against the newcomers run particularly deep in eastern states like Saxony.

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

“They should all just disappear,” said a man in his 50s, when asked what he thought of the refugees in Saxony.

Enrico Schwarz, who runs an association in Freital that has been helping Kassas and 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.”

“And (they feel) threatened by other migrants who are arriving now,” he said.

Right-wing extremists are capitalising on fears with arguments such as “they’re taking jobs away, or they’ll drive health insurance contributions up”, and lines are gradually blurring between those who are stirring up hate, and others who are simply worried about their future.

“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,” Schwarz said.

Erdmute Gustke, pastor at a church in Heidenau – another Saxony village hit by 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.

I am so stressed I have developed a stomach problem. Mohammad Alkhodari