I Sleep in Hitler's Room (32 page)

The Stasi [the former East Germany’s ministry of state security], I assume, had a big file on you.

“Yes.”

Did you see it?

“I went to the government office that had it and reviewed it for two hours.”

That’s it?

“It’s a thick file. I couldn’t read it all. I asked them to send me a copy.”

Did they?

“Yes, they did.”

What’s in it?

“I didn’t read it.”

It’s in your house and you never opened it?

“Yes.”

Aren’t you intrigued?

“That’s the past.”

Are there accounts by citizens who testified against you?

“Yes.”

For example?

“My neighbor told the Stasi that I had a brothel.”

Say that again—

“I used to have many friends who came over, young men and women, and he thought that I had a brothel.”

Did you confront this man?

“No.”

Why not?

“That’s the past.”

Are their other testimonies in your file?

“Maybe.”

Aren’t you intrigued?

“That’s the past.”

Were there other people in your family who had trouble with the regime?

“My brother. Gregor Gysi was his lawyer.”

You know this Gysi?

“I talk to him for professional reasons from time to time. Just a few days ago he wanted Helge to appear in a presentation that he made at the Volksbühne Theater.”

I tell Till of Gregor’s objection to having his Jewishness mentioned.

“He’s Jewish?”

Why, you didn’t know?

“I never knew he was Jewish.”

His story sounds interesting to me, so I go to meet Tom Dahl, Till’s brother. He was a musician in the GDR, but he wanted to leave the East. One day he went to West German Ständige Vertretung (Permanent Mission) to ask for a visa and was subsequently arrested by the Stasi. He spent twenty months in jail.

“I asked that Gregor Gysi represent me, because he had a good name. Gregor told me that he believed that I was not guilty but that I had no chance. He appeared in court four times, but that was a show.”

On Gregor’s part as well?

“Yes, of course. Gysi was a member of the Stasi.”

About five years after the wall came down, Tom got his Stasi file, but it contained only the information from his time of imprisonment. As for the rest of the documents about him, Tom was told that if he asked for them they would try to find them. Did he ask for them? No. In fifteen years, Tom tells me, he didn’t find the time to send the letter of request. A busy man.

Did your family “sing”?

“I don’t know.”

Maybe your father betrayed you?

“Maybe.”

Don’t you want to know for sure?

“I know.”

You know?

“Yes. I am sure he did.”

You sure?

“After I was arrested he didn’t talk to me.”

Didn’t?

“He was a Communist.”

And—

“I became the enemy.”

Enemy?

“Yes. When I was in prison my mother would come to visit me, but my father would stay outside in the car. He didn’t want to see me. I still remember this.”

The wall fell. Since then, have you met the people who put you in jail? For example, the judge?

“No.”

Did you try to trace him?

“No. For what?”

To say Fuck you!?

“No. Why would I do that?”

I play a little with Tom:

Look, look! He is right there! The judge. Say something to him, man!

“fuck you!”

So, that’s what you really feel?

“Yes.”

But you wouldn’t ask for the file . . .

“Maybe. At some point. I don’t know when.”

Tom and Till, the two East Germans, force me to rethink everything I know and have learned about Germany and Germans. Now there’s a question mark that I have to put next to the line “I know Germany.” Perhaps I have to throw the line in the trash altogether.

East Germans have more than one piece of baggage to carry on their shoulders. While the rest of the Germans carry the baggage of their country, or their families, of killing “foreigners” such as Jews, gays, gypsies, or Russians, the East Germans have one more piece to carry: killing their own brothers and sisters, betraying their own friends, or sending their own relatives to prison. This is one load too heavy to carry.

How do they cope with it?

Perhaps one way of doing it is: I won’t read the file.

It’s amazing.

An hour or two later, Tom drops me off at the Bunker in Marxloh.

These Turkish activists, a fine group of people, invite me to stay in a hotel nearby. I accept. This gives me time to get to know the Bunker people better as well as the general Turkish community in Marxloh.

Here in the bunker, at the top floor, I find a group of young people whose goal is to reclaim poor, no-hope districts. The spirit animating this group is provided by Mustafa, Halil, and another person who is not here. That other person is German German; Mustafa and Halil are Turkish German. I sit down to speak with Mustafa, once more.

How important is it for you to be Turkish?

“Not at all. Last time when I was in Turkey with Halil, we met a famous Turkish director. He was talking about Germany. He was trying to explain how come Germany is such a powerful country after being almost totally destroyed in the war. He said Germany’s rise was so rapid because they stole all the money of the Jews. And I said that that was not enough to make Germany successful, that there were other reasons as well for its success. I didn’t contradict him, I just added to what he said. When the director heard it, I could see that his face changed immediately. He stopped talkkng, and I was told that I was thickheaded.”

What are you trying to say?

“In Turkey you must respect the man of higher education, and you can’t disagree with him. That is Turkish culture, not mine.”

His culture is “Marxloh.” “I am a ‘Turkish German,’ ” he says.

What does that mean?

“I will tell you a little story. When I was a boy, I found a hundred deutsche marks on the street. I had a very close friend, and I spent the money on food, sweets, ice cream, everything, for both of us. Together we spent all the money in one week. That was a lot of money for me, but I shared it with my best friend, a German German. The following week I needed fifty cents to buy something, but I didn’t have the money on me. I asked him if he could give me fifty pennies. He gave them to me. Then, a day later, he came to me and said, ‘Can you give me back the money?’ I was surprised, because I had spent so much money on him just the week before. You understand? He was German German. Different culture. I don’t want this culture; that’s why I want to preserve my own culture.”

Don’t you think that a Turkish German kid would behave the same way?

“No. Never. Look at Turkish neighborhoods. Everyone is with everyone. You don’t have to make appointments with your neighbor. You just knock on the door and walk in. You understand me?”

Got it. But that’s Turkish culture, that’s Middle Eastern culture, that’s the East. Why not just be Turkish? Why Turkish German?

“I love German order! Trains being on time, police security, things running properly . . .”

Whom are you attracted to more, German women or Turkish women?

“German! I can’t stand the caprices of Turkish girls.”

Why don’t you like Turkish girls?

“When you go out with a Turkish girl, the first thing she expects of you is that you pay. Then you sit down and talk. About what? The whole talk is about jealousy, marriage, what’s forbidden and how to manipulate prohibitions. I can’t stand it!”

Should I tell Mustafa that Orthodox Jews are just the same? Maybe next time we meet.

Mustafa has a mother he loves, his biological Turkish mom. But he also has a second mom, a German woman he calls Mama. A white, German German woman named Gitti Schwantes. She is a peace activist from Marxloh, and she’s the spirit and power behind Rosen für Marxloh, or Roses for Marxloh, a peace-and-love initiative that’s basically a rose garden.

Gitti, whose house is adjacent to the Merkez Mosque, the “biggest mosque in Germany,” is a very busy woman these days. The
Süddeutsche Zeitung
is coming to interview her, and so is a radio station. She feels wanted, and she believes she deserves the attention. After working at it for years, she finally got the various permits and the financing to build a rose garden on the mosque’s property. Why she would need permits from the government to build on the mosque’s property isn’t clear to me, but I guess that’s the law here. What’s really important, I quickly learn, is the purpose of it all. The garden, she tells me, will offer people of different religions the opportunity to stop by the mosque and feel good about Muslims. In other words, this is a p.r. tool for promoting an image of the mosque and of Islam as being full of friendliness and love.

Gitti came to Marxloh with her husband in 1972. The two of them, both intellectuals, believed in justice and wanted to help and empower to the workers. Her husband, an economist, took a job in the factory. Not because the man was a working-class guy, of course, but because he wanted to “infiltrate” the working class and gain their confidence by having a job just like them. After ten years, when he thought the had gained their trust, he tried to push them into a social revolution against the establishment. But they said no to that.

Soon after, Gitti and her husband divorced.

This must be a sore point, but I touch on it nevertheless.

Trying to spread love all over, you ended up not being able to love even each other. Is that correct?

“Oh, this is terrible, the way you put it.”

But isn’t it true?

“Yes, this is true.”

And now, what now?

“We are building a rose garden, next to the mosque.”

Why that?

“So that people can meet each other.”

And love each other?

“Yes.”

Same dream as before?

“Yes.”

Who are the people you want to have love each other in the rose garden?

“Muslims, Jews, Christians.”

And you think that your rose garden will achieve this?

“Yes.”

Why and how?

“Roses have a good smell.”

And that’s why people will go there?

“Yes.”

You will achieve world peace, love between the three religions, because of a rose?

“I hope.”

You and your husband spent decades trying to achieve love between Germans, and failed. Now you think you will—

“Why didn’t you come two years ago—?”

Nobody has ever challenged her before, and now she feels like a total idiot. But two minutes later, she regrets her regret.

“No. People will come and talk to each other--”

You really think that Jews will come to a garden, on the mosque’s grounds, to meet Muslims? Can’t they meet them in a Turkish restaurant? There are great Turkish restaurants around. I’ve tried them. Do Jews and Christians go to those restaurants?

“No.”

So why—

“I don’t know. But the garden will be nice—”

Would you go to a rose garden built next to an NPD [the “neo-Nazi” Party] office?

“No!”

Why will those who hate the Muslims come to your garden?

“I don’t know.”

Maybe it’s time to stop?

“Too late to stop.”

Why?

“What will I say, that a man came to me, asked me questions and I didn’t know how to answer? That’s a shame.”

Are you religious?

“No.”

Your parents?

“Yes.”

Do you believe in God?

“What do you mean?”

The God of the Bible, for example?

“No. Not anymore.”

Do you believe in freedom for women?

“Of course!”

You are a nonbelieving feminist, can we say that?

“Yes.”

And you support the Muslims here and their mosque?

“Yes, yes.”

Do they believe in the same God who is the God of the Bible?

“The same.”

Their women have to wear hijab, kind of like Orthodox Jews?

“What are you trying to—”

You’re not an Orthodox Jew, are you?

“Me? No.”

Why are you supporting a religious institution that believes women—

“Muslims believe in peace.”

How do you know?

“They told me.”

And you believe them?

“That’s the meaning of the word
Islam
.”

How do you know, do you speak Arabic?

“No, I don’t. But they told me.”

Islam
in Arabic means
submission
.

“To whom?”

To Allah.

“OK.”

Did you attend a worship service in the mosque?

“I went in one time, and then I left.”

Are women and men praying together?

“No.”

Who gets the nice part of the mosque and who gets the other part? Where are the men and where are the women located in the mosque?

“The women have to cook, don’t they?”

So, you believe that women should stay in the kitchen and let the men have fun?

“Are you a therapist?”