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It happened three years after the wall came down. At the beginning, just a few of them came. They were young—some teenagers, some in their twenties. They approached the building fast—their steps determined, their minds full of violence and free of doubt.
The young men gathered in front of the building. A few sported visible signs of neo-Nazi affiliation: shaved heads, military boots, bomber jackets. But most of them had the appearance of ordinary citizens. They wore sweatpants, jeans, short hair, long hair, or mullets. Nothing about them seemed unusual, if you were used to the early 1990s fashion atrocities. They chanted nationalist slogans. “Germany for Germans. Foreigners out.” Then the first rocks flew toward the building.
The building in question was an ugly apartment tower—plattenbau style, a depressing relict of communist public housing. To alleviate its stern appearance, somebody had ordered to cover its façade with three giant sunflowers. It didn’t increase its aesthetic appeal. Locals had mostly abandoned the concrete atrocity. But the city administration of Rostock had come up with a new function for it. The building had become a shelter for asylum seekers and other immigrants. It was a gigantic holding cell, a storage area for people whose immigration requests were being processed by the authorities. Built for 300 tenants, the building soon harbored more than 1000 people.
The residents, mostly Vietnamese or Roma from Eastern Europe, had retreated inside the sunflower building. Many had camped on the lawn outside before the mob arrived. The lack of space and the unsanitary circumstances in the overcrowded shelter had made the open sky the preferable option. Now, the approaching brutes with murder in their eyes had made all options vanish. Men, women, and children were crammed into the small apartment units. They had come from far, some possessing little more than their bare lives. They had reached Germany, filed their cases, and waited while the authorities considered whether they would be granted the right to stay. The mob did not wish to consider. Those people outside wanted them gone—one way or the other. And so, the immigrants waited and hoped. Would the rage wear off? Would the crowd disperse? Would they force their way? Barricades at the entrance door provided a pathetic last line of defense against the raging hordes surrounding the building. But everybody knew, they would not prevent a determined attack.
Outside, the crowd grew by the minute. Housewives, workers coming home from their shifts, retirees—they all surrounded the building and gazed as the young men were going about their violent business. Some joined in the chanting of nationalist slogans. Others observed quietly. Nobody displayed any sign of disapproval. Many discussed the matter with other pedestrians. Sure, it was drastic, but what else could be done? Had they not told the authorities that they didn’t want those people here? But nobody had listened. Instead, more and more of this scum had arrived. Loitering in the neighborhood, stealing, and most certainly lusting for women. This just anger was the result of all that. After all, everybody had a breaking point.
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Such sentiment where widespread in Germany in 1992. The re-unification had merged the formerly communist East, really a developing country, with the capitalist West. Harsh economic and social adjustments followed, as the East Germans had to adopt the Western way of life. Without the guaranteed work provided in centrally planned economies, unemployment rose drastically. One could have blamed the rapidly deteriorating living standards, the reduced income, and the rising unemployment on various causes: 40 years of communist mismanagement, diminished competitiveness, or on the painful transition to a market driven economy. But such reasons couldn’t convince the masses. Abstract notions and complicated processes were unsatisfying explanations. What was needed someone to blame, someone to hate, someone to obsess about. Immigrants were convenient victims. They were declared responsible for lost jobs, lost opportunities, and lost self-esteem. Their guilt convinced many, despite (or perhaps because of) the minuscule number of immigrants actually residing in the East. Assaults due to xenophobic and racial hatred far exceeded similarly motivated crimes in the Western part of the country.
Inside the sunflower building it became clear that the attackers wouldn’t go away. The hours passed, and dusk approached. The constant cacophony of chattering and cheering outside was only disrupted by the thumping sound of rocks and bottles shattering against the walls. Confusion rose inside the quarters, and so did fear. Why was there no help on the way? Did the authorities know what was happening? Why was this allowed to go on? Every now and then, someone would rise and move the makeshift barriers covering the windows aside, and risk a glimpse. Outside a roar of hateful shouting would respond, followed by an immediate rain of rocks, bottles, racial slurs.
The media arrived. Camera crews positioned themselves, different networks competing for the best spots. Reporters swarmed out and mingled with the crowd. What did the neighbors think of all that? “Good that it’s finally happening. Those foreigners are an abomination.” “They’re parasites. Thieves and rapists, all together.” “We never wanted them here. We weren’t asked. Now we take matters into our own hands.” Despite the expressed anger, the mood seemed somewhat cheerful, almost festive. The crowd celebrated the spontaneous expression of rage. And one could sense their eager excitement in anticipation of more to come.
At last, the police arrived, most likely incentivized by the images on the nation’s TV screen. Units in riot gear positioned themselves opposite the crowd. Nervous tension spread among the rioters. But the police appeared worried, too. Worse, they appeared ill-prepared, and disorganized. A few isolated officers advanced. Their interaction with the crowd became heated. One officer found himself surrounded by a group of especially aggressive rioters. He was knocked to the ground, stomped by half a dozen boots, then released. Hurt and confused, he staggered back to his colleagues. The crowd cheered. They felt emboldened. Their momentary apprehension wore off. Other violent clashes occurred—isolated and mostly inconsequential. A few officers were injured. A few rioters arrested. But no resolute riot control commenced. No effort to disperse the crowd. Nor any attempt to evacuate the residents trapped in the building. The police appeared unable, or worse, unwilling to act. Eventually, they withdrew, leaving the resident in the building to their fate.
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There had been repeated allegation that the police in in East Germany were sympathizing with xenophobia and racism. Recruited from a frustrated, disillusioned population, many officers seemed to share the resentment of the community. Reports of extreme right-wing political sentiments among officers, and racial profiling tactics were abundant. Xenophobic and racist crimes went uninvestigated, unsolved or unpunished. In West Germany it was commonly accepted that East German law enforcement was “blind on the right eye.”
When the police withdrew, a wave of exhilaration took hold of the rioters. They understood. Nobody would intervene. They could destroy, assault, even kill at will. With frantic eagerness, they returned to work. Some brought concrete plates from a nearby construction site. They were shattered, producing an abundance of projectiles. They were ready for a long night. The thumping of the rocks hitting the façade began to crescendo. Then glowing trails of fire appeared in the sky, as the first wave of Molotov cocktails hit the sunflower building.
There had been a moment of hope inside the building when the residents had seen the police arrive. Soon, all this would be over. Any minute now, the police would drive the raging hordes away. They would be safe. They would leave this nightmare behind. But nothing happened. They waited, tense and confused. Only when they saw the police retreating, did certainty replace their puzzlement. Nobody would save them. The police, the government, the German people had no intention to intervene. They sided with the mob.
Some began to blame themselves. Why had they come here? How could they have been so naïve? Had they truly believed that they had entered a civilized country? Had they believed that law and order would constrain such barbarism? Did they not stand on soil of a nation that had committed the worst act of mass murder known to mankind? Nothing had changed.
Women screamed, and children cried, when the building began to burn. Men cursed and frantically tried to extinguish the rising flames. But it was to no avail. More and more Molotov cocktails hit the building, setting various apartments ablaze. Outside the murderous crowd waited, ready to rush toward anybody trying to escape the inferno. The tower was about to become a mass grave—a concrete tomb, grotesquely decorated with three gigantic sunflowers.
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The racist riots of Rostock lasted three days. Three days of hatred. Three days of violence. Three days of police inactivity. The images of the riots went around the world, revealing the ugly side of re-united Germany. At last, the constant media coverage and domestic and international pressure forced the police to act. The crowd was dispersed with water cannons. Miraculously, nobody had died. The residents of the burning sunflower tower escaped onto the roof and reached the safety of an adjacent building. They would continue living in a country in which many had been willing to see them burned alive.
The smoke had barely vanished when the politicians took over. The matter reached the Bundestag and was thoroughly debated. Conservatives agreed that the whole affair had been unpleasant, indeed. But it had also shown that it was high time to take a closer look at immigration regulations. The people had raised their voice, after all. And it was certainly not acceptable that just about everybody could come and simply stay in this country. Liberals and socialists emphasized a little more how very tragic the whole affair had been. But eventually they joined their conservative counterparts and turned a set of regulations into law, which not only raised the legal bar for asylum seekers, but also aimed at drastically reducing immigrations in general.
A teenager at that time, I had never been to Rostock, or to East Germany. I had witnessed everything from the West, in Munich, that evening. Nevertheless, the images left a profound impact which would last for decades. I was hit by a confusing mixture of fear, guilt, and shame. Was this the Germany that I was supposed to grow up in? Would the crimes of my grandparents’ generation rise once more? Would the scrutinizing world find me guilty by association? One image circulating in the media perfectly captured my impression.
One man, a guy in his thirties, apparently drunk, stood slightly apart from the group of onlookers in front of the besieged sunflower house. He sported a blonde Hulk Hogan style handlebar mustache, and wore a soccer jersey decorated with the black, red, and gold of the German flag—the same jersey that had seemed so innocent when the German team had worn the World Cup two years earlier. The alcohol he had consumed to celebrate the violent catharsis had left him intoxicated—to an extent that his bladder control had failed. A large urine stain was visible in the crotch of his sweat pants. The man’s eyes looked dazed. He seemed unaware of the grinning spectator next to him, and even of the camera, as he raised his hand to an unsteady Nazi salute.
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Now decades later, I, too, have lived as an immigrant for most of my adult life. And the years in various countries have taught me that the piss-stained guy with the raised arm is not confined to Germany (although he still has a comfortable home there). He is a citizen of the world. He lives in in Paris, where the fear of foreign cultural influence causes angry nationalist paranoia and the even the sound of foreign languages induces instant hostility. He marched in Charlottesville holding tiki torches, his face distorted to a grotesque mask of hatred. He dwells in the townships of Johannesburg where xenophobic assailants have doused immigrants from Zimbabwe and Mozambique in gasoline, and set them alight. The colors on his attire change, and sometimes even the color of his skin, but his hatred remains all the same.
The piss-stained man poses uncomfortable challenges to his fellow citizens everywhere. It is on them to decide whether they silently accept his Nazi salute. It is on them to decide whether he gets to define the nature of their country. And it is on them to decide whether his overt presence is the new normal. Silence and acceptance will inevitably create an altered status quo: a land of resentment, fertile ground for many burning sunflowers.
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Photo credit: Getty Images