I Sleep in Hitler's Room (34 page)

Mustafa’s sister, a very intelligent teenager, tells me her dream is to move to Turkey to live there. “I am a stranger in this land, the Germans look down on me.” She really doesn’t like Marxloh, though she understands why her brother is trying so hard to improve the image of their birth city.

How about your friends in school, do they also want to move to Turkey?

“All of them.”

Then Mustafa suggests that I see Zülfiye.

Zülfiye Kaykin, Turkish-born, came to Germany in 1977. She got her education here and, as she grew up, started feeling she was discriminated against. Zülfiye, state secretary of NRW (North Rhine–Westphalia) Ministry of Integration, used to be the general manager of Duisburg’s Merkez Mosque.

Zülfiye spent nine of her better years totally dedicated to the mosque. She was the mosque’s face when dealing with the German government, which gave 3.6 million euros for the construction of the mosque. But after fights with the mosque’s board, which she blames for spreading false rumors about her during internal struggles for power, she resigned.

What rumors did they spread about you?

“That I misused a hundred twenty thousand euros of the mosque’s money.”

Are you telling me that they used you as their ‘face’ with the German authorities only as long as they needed you but, once they didn’t, since the German government had already paid what it committed to, they just wanted you out?

“Yes. I looked good as their front: modern, blond, educated. I was used.”

She doesn’t wear hijab, except when she goes to the mosque. “When you come to pray you have to cover your head.”

Why is it that men don’t have to cover their heads?

“Why do you say that? Men must cover their heads as well.”

Sure?

“Yes!”

Do the men of this mosque cover their heads?

“Yes!”

I saw them and they didn’t.

“What you saw are men who don’t follow the rules.”

One thousand of them?

“What are you saying?”

I prayed with them.

“You did?”

Well, Zülfiye is a politician. She tried to trick me, and it didn’t work. But once she realizes that I was in the mosque and saw what I saw, she gives me a sweet smile . . .

I tell her of the interesting encounter with Hamiyet et al. and ask her how she explains these anti-Semitic outbursts.

“If it’s true, then it’s because we’ve not been integrated by the German community.”

Integration between Turks and Germans is a matter between Turks and Germans. How did the Jews get in the middle? What do the Jews have to do with this?

Zülfiye goes around and around but does not answer. Finally she admits that “these feelings exist in the community” but insists that they don’t originate with the mosque.

Well, you just admitted that anti-Semitic feelings exist in the community. My question to you is: Is the mosque trying to fight this way of thinking? Should it?

“I will talk to the imam and next Friday it will happen.”

When will you talk to him?

“Later.”

Wouldn’t you like to talk to him right now?

I offer to use my phone. If she gives me the imam’s number, I can dial.

No, she has her own phone. Zülfiye calls him. They have a long conversation. Long, long. When she finally hangs up, she says: “The imam is shocked and will speak about it next Friday. This is pure anti-Semitism and he will totally denounce it.”

Zülfiye, let me quote to you what Mohammed Al said to me, and I’d like to have your comment. “Most Turks living in Duisburg love Germans, love Jews, love Israelis and are happy to live in Germany.”

Zülfiye laughs. She says: “And that’s why thousands of Turks demonstrated against Israel in Duisburg last month . . .”

I don’t know what she’s taking about. Thousands of demonstrators about—

“Against Israel. We have this about once a year. Ten to fifteen thousand go to the street to demonstrate against Israel.”

Sitting in the salon of her home, Zülfiye explains to me how the Duisburg Merkez Mosque works—or, more precisely, how nine hundred mosques in Germany work. In Turkey there exists a council of eighty theologians, governed by a president. Following consultations, the president dictates to imams of nine hundred mosques throughout Germany, which are part of DITIB (
Diyanet Işleri Türk-Islam Birliği
—the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs), the text of their Friday speeches. Only after this speech is delivered can individual imams add something about local issues.

It’s extremely hot in Zülfiye’s place. Her husband tries different combinations with fans that he keeps bringing in, but they don’t help much and we all sweat. I think it’s time to leave. I tell her: Zülfiye, I’m coming to the mosque on Friday to hear the imam’s condemnation of anti-Semitism.

Zülfiye, or so I judge from the way her eyes move, didn’t expect this from me. She makes an immediate half-reversal, a “clarification” of sorts: “The imam will say, ‘We have to be careful what we say.’ ” Not for naught is this woman a politician.

I should have let it rest, really. She’s a nice lady, after all. But for some reason, like a one-year-old who can’t stop kvetching, I press on: Is that it? Is that all he’s going to say? Didn’t you say, just before, that he—

Zülfiye is a woman of Law and Order. She tells the Kvetcher: “This is all he can say. That is the policy.”

The “This is pure anti-Semitism and he will totally denounce it” has gone through a major surgical operation in just a few minutes. But I understand. Law is law. And in Germany, I have heard many times, the law is very, extremely important.

Zülfiye and I exchange looks, and then we both laugh. I tell her that she passed the test: You are an excellent liar, and I’m sure an excellent politician. We shake hands. We understand each other.

See you at the mosque, Zülfiye. I’ll be there on Friday to check on the imam.

But before I do, since we have a few days till Friday, I meet Rainer, a professional photographer. He’s a German German and he’s the third person in the trinity that includes Mustafa and Halil, the team that makes up the Medien-Bunker.

“I just came back from Palestine,” he greets me. “You don’t go to Palestine?”

He loves to say “Palestine,” I can clearly see.

As-Salamu ‘Aleikum, Mr. Rainer. Do you also visit Israel from time to time?

“I was just in Tel Aviv.”

I see that it’s hard for him to say “Israel.”

You went to Israel?

“I wanted to go to Gaza but they didn’t let me.”
They
.

Rainer, I have the impression, would like Israel to disappear. It would make him feel better, much better.

“I assume you are on the Palestinian side. Is that so?”

“No. I am open-minded. I know that there are two sides. I’m just looking for justice.”

And you think that both sides must improve—

“Exactly.”

You’re a photographer, right?

“Yes.”

Did you take pictures to show the injustice?

“Yes, I did!”

So, did you capture the injustice that the Israelis commit against innocent Palestinians?

“What are you trying to say?”

What did you capture with your camera?

“The Separation Wall. I walked along it for 50 kilometers.”

Obviously, you’re on the Palestinian side, aren’t you?

“Why would you say—”

You walked for 50 kilometers, taking pictures--

“Justice, man!”

Did you look for justice closer to home? Let’s say Kurdistan, Chechnya—

“What are you trying to say?”

Why are you so fixated on Israel?

“Is there something that you have in mind—?”

Just wondering why a German like you is so interested in Jews like them?

“Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

Yes, of course. What time?

“Eleven o’clock.”

Perfect.

Day follows day, and “tomorrow” is now. I show up at the Bunker for our scheduled interview. Eleven comes. No Rainer. Twelve. No Rainer. One. No Rainer. Two. No Rainer.

I leave the Bunker and go to the mosque. Got to pray for the Germans. Halil joins me. As we approach, just by the rose garden, the imam and the president, Mr. Al, pass by us. Each looks like a million dollars: dressed up and sharp. They must have a good life. I approach the imam. I want to know if Zülfiye talked to him about the “Jews.”

The setting here is quite interesting, even theatrical. The mosque is in the background, the rose garden that’s being built is right here, and everybody is talking in a different language. The imam speaks Turkish. Halil is helping out. And President Al is also getting involved in the translations, but he insists on speaking German and not English. I try to speak in Arabic to the imam but get the impression that he doesn’t understand Arabic, since he keeps speaking Turkish. So I switch to English.

Will the Imam give a sermon about “the Jews” on Friday? Not really. It turns out that the imam isn’t even in Germany on Friday, he’s going to Turkey. So, was I fed lies? Well, this is the imam’s version of the truth: Yes, Zülfiye talked to him, but he didn’t tell her what she said he did. “I said that I would look into it to find if this is the truth, if somebody said those things. But I didn’t promise that I’d speak on Friday. I said that I would inquire about it, who said it, and I spoke with my superior about it, and he said that nobody in this community had anything against anybody and therefore there’s no reason to give a sermon about it on Friday.”

How many members you have in this community?

“One thousand.”

Did you speak to all of them?

“No.”

I’m trying to figure out how he knows that nobody said anything if he didn’t talk to them.

He explains.

“I didn’t hear it. And we can’t work on suspicions . . .”

Well, I can solve this little problem for the imam and the president. Gitti is here. She was with me at the house of the Turkish family and she heard it all. She would be a reliable witness, wouldn’t she? I point at Gitti and ask him: Do you know her?

It doesn’t take him long to cut me off sharply: “I have to go!”

Gitti, the ever vigilant mosque apologist, witnesses this in pain. Yet it takes her less than one full minute to come up with yet another theory. “Maybe,” she says, “the imam is drunk. He didn’t mean a word he said. He just had too much beer.”

After so many years with Muslims, she still hasn’t figured out that alcohol is forbidden to them. Will she say anything, true or not, just to save this imam?

At this point, even Halil is laughing. I ask myself: Is this capacity to stare at facts and stubbornly ignore them like a child, is it a German quality? Is this how I have to interpret the older Germans who say they didn’t know anything during the war? Is this how I have to interpret the younger Germans who are so anti-Israel even before any facts are on the table?

Some distance from the mosque and the rose garden I meet a Turkish woman who, for obvious reasons, I won’t identify by name. She speaks to me.

“A few weeks ago the mosque arranged for memorial services and celebrations in honor of the late Alparslan Türkeş, leader of the Turkish extreme right MHP [Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi] and the notorious Grey Wolves. Do you know of them? They’re a racist, supremacist, anti-Semitic society. The Wolves are anticapitalist and anticommunist at the same time, because they claim that both schools of thought were founded by Jews. Some Turkish people wanted to demonstrate against this, but Germans like Gitti were against it. They have no problem with the Grey Wolves. Do you know who’s a member of the Wolves? Zülfiye’s husband.”

I have no way of checking if he is, as I have no access to Grey Wolves records. Should I ask Gitti or the other German supporters of the mosque? Honestly, I think there’s no point in bringing this issue up with them. They’ll claim that the memorial services held here were for another Alparslan Türkeş, who was actually a drunk Turkish Jew, that MHP stands for Muslim Hebrew Peace party, and that the MHP and the Grey Wolves are sworn enemies.

I’m about to leave this place and its mix of cultures.

Sitting on the train, thoughts come flying at me from the opposite direction of the traffic flow. What have I seen in Marxloh? I found pride in the Turkish community, huge pride, but also much hate. I admire their spine, their passion, their commitment, and the warmth of their culture. But their senseless hate, their never-ending Jew mocking, and the ease with which their community embraces fanaticism disgust me. I’m sorry.

And then there are the Germans. What they protect is not the Quran or Islam, as they know nothing about either, but the kind of Islam that prevails in their society. Here are Germans who want to erase the shame of being the Jew killers of yesterday by uniting with the Jew haters of today. These Germans have no backbone, no pride, no knowledge, and very little humanity. Peace and Love, they say, a thousand times a day, and it’s a thousand times empty. They flash two fingers, front and back, for Peace and for Love, but their hearts sing
Sieg Heil
.

But it’s not only Gitti and her friends, it’s the German media as well. Parading as truth tellers and honest messengers of news, here they fail at both. They fail to expose this community and this mosque for what they are: Jew haters. Not only do they fail to expose them, they also rush to hide them. Reading what they write about them is staggering. Not even the Jewish Bride of Berlin, Mr. Diekmann, with her/his eight hundred journalists, is here to uncover this shame of Germany.