I Sleep in Hitler's Room (41 page)

Later I get on the first tram that comes my way and have it take me to the last stop. And there I get off. Where am I? I stand next to a traffic light. There’s a poster on it, a colored poster, which explains what I should do once I get to this very point. The red, it says, means that I have to steh (stand). The green, it says, means geh (go). As in the Neue Pinakothek museum in Munich, the authorities here are sure we’re all retarded. Where am I? Is there a museum nearby? A passerby tells me that I’m in Wahren. Heard of it before? Neither have I. I walk into a
Kneipe
(pub), or whatever they call it. I have no idea who the people here are. Except that they all drink beer. I sit down and ask: Is it good that the GDR is over? Three people in the pub, drinking beer and liquor, and they respond:

“The GDR was much better. We all worked. We all had health insurance.”

They talk more, one after the other, and the other after the one:

“It’s not true what they say about the Stasi. Life was good. All they wanted is that people wouldn’t leave. Yes, if you talked against the government they did something to you. But now it’s the same. Talk against the system and you’ll pay for it.”

“In GDR times, we were all together, all the people, and we cared for each other. Today it’s not like that. The western Germans are individualistic. They come here, to our neighborhood, and immediately build a fence around their houses. They don’t want to have anything to do with us.”

“In this neighborhood, half the people don’t work. They can’t find a job. The Wall fell down, and what happened? Go and see. People eat from garbage cans. During the GDR, all people had the right to work, smart or not. Not today. They say that during the GDR era we had a dictatorship. Look what we have today: Democracy with criminals. Crime all over.”

“I’ve been married thirty-five years. My wife has worked for the same company for thirty-nine years. And after all that time she earns 620 euros a month,
netto
[net]. That’s for 170 hours.
Brutto
[gross], that’s 5.62 euro an hour. She’s a florist. How can we live on this? Ask Frau Merkel.”

“There are two Germanys, one in the west and the other in the east. We have the same roots, but we’re different people. The western people are arrogant and they treat us like trash. We’re people who live together. We’ve had better times. The Wall fell, and we pay for it. The west Germans got richer, and we’re poorer.

“Are you writing this? Good. It’s time people know this, it’s time people know the truth.”

“After the wall fell down I signed a contract for a savings account with an office in the west. That was 30,000 DM that I gave them. The first year I got something from them, like interest, and then the company said that they went bankrupt and all my money evaporated. I hired a lawyer, but all I got from it was more expenses. I should have kept my money under the mattress.”

“What is this machine you carry? Is this a secret camera?”

A new customer, who came here just to have a hot tea, explains: “This country used to be a prison with a wall. Now it’s a prison with money.”

Says another: “Businessmen are people who know how to cheat better than others.”

“It’s better to be the first man in a little village than the second man in Rome,” philosophizes another man.

Another man comes in. Was the GDR time better? I ask him.

“Much better,” he answers.

No one here likes the German government’s interior policies. What do they think of Germany’s foreign policy? Yes, they do have opinions about that too. Strong opinions.

“Get out of Afghanistan! Build a wall around them and leave!”

“Israel should get tough treatment. We have to tell them to stop!”

“The Israelis are Nazis.”

“They do to the Palestinians what we did to them.”

Do you like Gregor Gysi?

“Yes!”

Is Gregor Gysi Jewish?

“No.”

“Can’t be,” says another.

Why not?

“Can’t! Impossible!” says a blond lady.

Yes, of course. They like Gregor so much that he obviously can’t be a Jew. No wonder he didn’t want to discuss his Jewishness. What a world!

Outside, rotten buildings stand empty with for-sale signs, and all around on dilapidated buildings is an abundance of posters celebrating Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. Some new construction is also visible in the area, with signs that read “Luxury Apartments.” At the edges of the neighborhood you can spot new housing units, with fences built around them to protect the newcomers from the “dreck” on all sides. A magnificent landscape soon reveals itself to the visitor: flowing water and gorgeous greenery.

Between them is a
Kleingartenverein
, the Small Gardens
Verein
. This
Verein
consists of urbanites who cultivate small gardens next to cute tiny mini-houses. It’s on this piece of land, some distance from their real homes, that they grow flowers, fruits, or vegetables. In their spare time they come here, work the land, drink beer, eat in “nature” and chat. I’ve seen quite a few of them before, but this is my first in the east.

And I have never seen any that are nicer or more picturesque.

Welcome to Kleingartenverein Wettinbrücker e.v. Two men, who answer to the names of Stefan and Uwe, discuss a major issue: The Rat Train from Germany to Rome.

Rat Train?

“Yes. That’s what we call it, because the Nazis used it to flee to Argentina.”

On this beautiful, somehow cool but sun-filled Saturday afternoon, these people have apparently nothing better to talk about than Nazis. Are they out of their minds?

Stefan invites me in. “We are the shadow Germans, in the shadow of the Wall,” says his next-door neighbor Uwe, referring to eastern Germans. “You can also call us ‘The
Dunkeldeutschen
’ [dark Germans].”

Is there a difference between east and west Germans?

Both agree that there is.

“If I were a western German,” Stefan offers, by way of illustration, “I wouldn’t invite you in.”

On reflection, he adds: “It was better under the GDR. We had a better life. We learned how to trust each other, and we made many friends. If I left my house tomorrow, ten to fifteen people would be there helping me. That would never happen in the west. We are two nations, two worlds. We [the eastern Germans] have many friends, and that’s because of the GDR.”

I tease him: Friends like the Stasi . . .?

“Oh,” says Gabi, Stefan’s wife, “that’s a big book by itself.”

Did you ask for your Stasi files?

“No!” says Stefan.

Why not?

“I have many friends, and I’m afraid that if I look at the file I’d cut off my relationship with quite a few of them. I don’t want to. I don’t want to know.”

Eastern Germany. A world unto itself.

A few hours later comes the sudden news of a stampede during the techno Love Parade festival in Duisburg. Nineteen are said to have been killed. Nearly a million and a half people showed up, according to some estimates, and Adolf Sauerland orders an investigation. The funny man I met in Duisburg isn’t laughing today.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has demanded an “intensive” investigation into the incident, reports the BBC. She is quoted as saying that she was “appalled” by the tragedy.

The BBC goes on to report: Pope Benedict XVI, who is German, expressed “deep sorrow” over the deaths. “I remember in my prayers the young people who lost their lives,” he said.

The next day I take a tram and land in the part of town known as Grünau. Many buildings, huge blocks, but little pedestrian traffic. It’s a bit strange, as there must be thousands of people in the area. Here’s a mom, dressed in hijab, walking and carrying a baby. Which reminds me that I haven’t seen much hijab in Leipzig. Interesting. I continue walking for about ten minutes, until I finally see more people, some standing and talking and others sitting on the other side of a Kurdish bistro.

It’s a hot day today and I put on a hat I bought a few days ago at Jack Wolfskin. It’s a funny
Sonnenhut
(sun hat), made of a Supplex material. It has a 360-degree brim to it and it covers my forehead, the top of my eyes, my ears, and some more. Basically, a third of my head. And as I walk toward the bistro, a man sitting outside catches sight of me. He says something to his friends, and they all turn their heads toward me. They examine me, intensely following every step I make. When I get close and say hello, they refuse to answer. I take off the hat and they warm up.

Slowly. Yep. My hat, I guess, made them suspicious . . .

About fifteen minutes later, they’re talking nonstop, about life. Their voices intermingle with one another.

“After the Wall fell, we could travel. That’s good, but who has money to travel? Everything else was better under the GDR.”

“Under the GDR you could have children, because the government took care of them. There was school, education, and food. Today you can’t bring children to the world if you don’t have money. This is the way of Merkel. She doesn’t have children and she doesn’t want anybody else to have them.”

“They should have made the Wall twice as high than they did.”

“They should build it again, twice as high!”

“I voted for Die Linke, but most people here vote for the NPD.”

“Too many foreigners here. One thousand percent more than should be.”

“I won’t tell you what I think of Merkel. I won’t answer this question.”

“Germany for the Germans!”

“I don’t know if there is a God or not. But I know one thing: There is no God who helps me.”

“If my wife lets me in tonight, then there is a God.”

The owner of the bistro is an Iraqi. He tells me: “Last night, at 23:00, young German kids were sitting here, right next to my bistro. They were ten-year-olds. They were drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. The parents are nowhere to be seen, because they’re all drunk. Here you have girls who are pregnant at thirteen. Two years ago a girl of fifteen came over. She wore a bikini and she had a baby in one arm and a bottle in the other. The police came and hauled them off. I saw this girl recently walking alone, and I asked her, ‘Where is your baby?’ She said, ‘What baby?’ ”

A German man from the neighborhood says to me: “The GDR made one mistake: They closed the doors. They should have kept them open. All those who would leave,would come back. Life was better and easier in the GDR.”

I don’t know. I wasn’t here when the GDR ruled this part of the country. Perhaps I should roam the east a little more, see other cities.

Where next? Dresden sounds interesting. A city that knew much death, bombed almost to the ground during World War II, and is now alive and well. Or so I hear.

Let’s check it out.

In Dresden I am, a city once known as “Florence on the Elbe.”

What is Dresden? Who lives in Dresden?

Many empty stores in the center with
Zu Vermieten
(for rent), signs, next to construction sites of new buildings and shops. What is the logic of this?

I go to see Dr. Bettina Bunge, managing director of Dresden Marketing GmbH. I ask her to explain Dresden to me. She does: “In Leipzig they trade, in Chemnitz they work, and in Dresden they spend their money. . . and enjoy life.”

What is Dresden famous for?

“We invented the bra. And the tea bag. And a lot of culture as well.”

Do you know who invented the bikini?

The doctor looks at me, not sure how to answer this.

You know, I tell her, if you find out which city invented the bikini, maybe your two cities should become Twin Cities.

The doctor, a lady full of life, asks her assistant to provide me with the necessary data. I think she feels I’m making fun of her, which I’m really not.

The assistant comes back with the information. Here it is: On September 5, 1899, a Dresden lady named Christine Hardt appeared at the patent office and requested to patent the bra, which she defined as “Frauenleibchen als Brustträger” (breast-holders as women’s underwear).

That settled, the doctor goes on to tell me about the almost total destruction this city suffered in World War II. She talks about the Women of the Rubble, the German women who worked to reconstruct the city piece by piece, stone by stone. “There were no men to do it, they were dead,” she explains.

After this cheerful introduction I go out, board a Dresden double-decker, and get off in a place with a sign that reads “Loschwitz.” And everything I ever thought about Dresden immediately evaporates. Before coming here I thought this would be a poor eastern specimens of urban decay. What a surprise! Loschwitz looks like one of those picturesque cities in Switzerland. What a beauty!

I meet a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt. He’s originally from Dresden, she from Köln. They live next to Köln and they came here on their vacation. Why here? To show Papa’s origin to the kids, who play nearby. Does he miss the city? Yes, he does. Would he like to move back? He wishes he could, but he has a job in Köln and he’d lose it if he left. What kind of job? He works for WDR.