Europe

Berlin’s tolerance tested by anti-Semitic and anti-gay incidents

Bullying and kindergarten cases underline cultural challenges of immigration

Peope watch a street performer in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Photograph: Carsten Koall/EPA

Derek Scally's face
Derek Scally in Berlin
Tue Apr 4 2017 - 11:05

Berlin’s unofficial philosophy, since the days of Prussia’s King Friedrich II, has been “each to their own”. It’s a philosophy that’s been tested twice in the last week: in the case of a bullied Jewish school boy and the threatened boycott of a gay kindergarten teacher.

Parents removed their 14-year-old son from his secondary school in the western district of Friedenau after a classmate reportedly told him: “You’re a cool dude but I can’t be friends with you, Jews are all murderers.”

Weeks earlier the boy, who was born and raised in Britain, was threatened by two other classmates with an imitation gun in a bus shelter.

"It was terrible," said the boy to Britain's Jewish Chronicle, "but I didn't have time to think what's happening at the time. Now when I look back I think, 'oh my God'."

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Their son’s tormentors were of Turkish or Arab background, according to his parents. They said they chose the school on moving to Berlin because it had a good mix of students from different backgrounds, and because it won an anti-racism prize last year. The boy was doing well in his new school, his parents said, until he mentioned in passing that he was a Jew.

School principal Uwe Runke has confirmed the bus shelter incident took place, and that the two perpetrators had been expelled, but he was unable to say whether the “All Jews are murderers” statement was made.

He said this was the first incident of its kind and that the school is working on its own programme to combat anti-Semitism, but that this “wasn’t fast enough” for the parents.

“I regret deeply that the boy has left us and, of course, that such a thing is possible,” said Mr Runke, who reported the incident to the police.

The boy’s grandparents, both Holocaust survivors, spoke to the students but the boy’s mother claims the principal declined to meet them and, in her view, did little but “make the right noises”. After four months of similar incidents, the boy’s parents removed their son from the school in frustration.

Jewish groups in Germany have sounded the alarm, saying the Friedenau incident highlights a growing anti-Semitism wave, particularly among younger German-Turks, German-Arabs and recent refugees.

“Unfortunately this is not a one off, we keep hearing of such attacks,” said Levi Salomon, spokesman of a Berlin anti-Semitism group. Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor and head of Munich’s Jewish community, warned that “Jew” had established itself as a popular term of abuse in German schoolyards.

A 2016 study of young Turkish-Germans by the University of Münster showed 86 per cent held positive views of the general German population, dropping to 49 per cent for Jews. The report’s authors said that this “obvious latent defensive position . . . could hide certain social conflict potential”.

The problem is not limited to Germany, with a Jewish community centre in the northern Swedish town of Umea announcing its closure after seven years after it was vandalised with swastikas and threatening messages.

Kindergarten

Back in Berlin, meanwhile, kindergarten staff faced down a dozen Russian, Romanian, Turkish and other parents who took issue with their children being cared for by a new staff member: a young gay man. They demanded the young man not touch their children, or be fired.

"For some of them homosexuals are automatically child molesters," said the man, who asked not to be identified, to Berlin's Tagesspiegel daily.

Backed by other parents and staff, the man stayed on and the kindergarten director told the parents to take their children elsewhere.

“They come from another world,” said the kindergarten director. “But we’re in Berlin, in the 21st century, that’s just not on.”

With rising numbers of homophobic and other attacks, Tagesspiegel has sounded the alarm in Germany's otherwise tolerant capital. While immigrant parents might be a lost cause, it argued, early integration efforts could teach their children Berlin's "each to their own" philosophy.

“It’s essential that children get to know and understand each other at an early age,” it said in a leader. “The German language, culture and tradition are key, and sexual tolerance is part of that.”