Allow me to share a story of rejection, one not from romantic love, but disappointment in the sense of misplaced loyalty. Having lived in Germany for three months by that point, I considered (as did those in my community such as the family from the motorcycle shop and cashier at the local LIDL who taught me three ways to ask for the receipt) myself partly partially habilitated to assimilate into German society.
I no longer spoke English in public (even with non-German friends), I no longer needed to ask for directions, I no longer needed help understanding messages over the PA at train stations, and I had about two German friends for every foreign friend I had there. I had two museum passes, two German bank accounts, a DB BahnBonus card with comfort status, proof of student matriculation, German ID with the right to gainful employment, health insurance, organ donor card, two supermarket loyalty cards, and opera tickets in my pocket.
After visiting Hrensko on the Czech side of the German-Czech border, I just missed the hourly train back to Dresden from Schöna station right across the Danube. When I found out that it only took about a half hour to walk one station down the line I thought it would be a good idea to admire the calm blue Danube if I had to wait an hour for the next train anyways. Dressed in a brown tweed suit and an old trench coat from 1968, I started on my three-kilometre walk along the German bank of the Danube while carrying a thin green plastic bag full of fresh Czech butter cookies.
About halfway through the walk, my peaceful walk was disturbed by the rude roar of a car some distance behind me. As the black Audi hatchback approached me in its cloud of dust, it slowed down and stopped beside me. The dark tinted windows rolled down to reveal two police officers dressed in full tactical gear. I rest my thin green plastic bag of butter cookies on the ground and leaned over on the car.
“Passport please.” One of the police officers bellowed.
I fished around in my trench coat for my passport and handed it over to the officer. “Ich bin student in Berlin” I explained, also offering him my matriculation papers and insurance card to prove eligibility for conditions of stay.
“Hmm.” He acknowledged with a grunt and entered some information on a computer inside the car.
“What do you carry?” The other officer asked.
“Tschechische essen.” I answered.
The first officer handed my passport back to me with a slip containing the details of my encounter with them. “Alles in Ordnung” he said. With that, the police drove off and left me in a cloud of dust.
I didn’t just feel unwelcome, I felt discriminated against and ostracised from German society from the state’s point of view. Perhaps it’s my taking for granted that Berlin is a highly international city, or my archaic style of clothing, but I feel that appearance and circumstance should never be used as a grounds for police inspections. I was walking along an internal EU border that has no restrictions on border crossings for residents of either country and wasn’t even crossing the border, I had already crossed it when I took the ferry across the Danube from Hrensko to Schöna.
Where I felt like a welcome part of my home Lichtenberg, it seemed as if that’s the only place where my presence was welcome. The rest of that day didn’t go easy for me, I felt I misplaced my loyalty to the German state when it only belonged to the German people.
