At a Nazi Concentration Camp Muslims Look at Germany’s Past

They believe Israel is the source of all their troubles

For Middle Eastern Muslim refugees in Germany, a visit to World War II concentration camps brings wonderment.[/tweetit] For Osman Jamo, a Syrian who fled from his native place Kobane in 2014, the bleak feature of Sachsenhausen concentration camp made him question how the Holocaust happened. He went to the camp and saw it all, including the gas chamber once stocked with the deadly Zyklon B.

At a Nazi Concentration Camp Muslims Look at Germany’s Past[/tweetthis]

Jamo went to the Sachsenhausen camp with the Berlin non-profit R.future-TV. The organization brings together refugees in Germany to discuss the history of their adopted country. Social issues of Germany are also discussed. Two actors, Sami Alkomi and Ninan Coenan had collected 9,000 euros so they could shoot, edit and finish five films to educate the public.

For Jamo, the Sachsenhausen camp did not impress him. He is used to violence, a former photographer who experienced constant daily violence everywhere he went in Syria. Surprisingly, he dismissed the people who caused the violence in his own country and went after Israel. According to the Syrian, the Jewish nation was the principal source of conflict in the Middle-Eastern region.

For many Germans, such a viewpoint is a troubling one. They expect that anyone taking residence in Germany will automatically take in that innate sense of duty laid down by the country's historians. Fatih Uenal, a political psychologist of German-Turkish ancestry, said Muslims' hatred towards Jews have resulted in increased anti-Semitic incidents. Uenal, who has founded a refugee centric vocational training program in Frankfurt, said that such subjects are hard to talk about with Muslims. It follows that people who are trying to convert Muslims away from such thoughts and opinions are having a hard time.

Like most Muslims, Jamo believes Israeli belligerence is the fundamental problem. His way of thinking is at odds with the stance taken by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. In her speech to Knesset, the legislative body in Israel, in 2008, she said the security of Israel was important to Germany. During her 2015 visit to Germany, the chancellor said that the concentration camps “admonish us never to forget.”

Sad but not shocking some Muslim refugees would still not be fans of Jewish people after seeing concentration campshttps://t.co/tpoE2tGZ51

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 14, 2017

The Arabs, however, do not see it that way. “The Arabs think what Hitler did was a good thing, because he freed them from the Jews,” said Jamo. Germany's less than glorious past is a difficult topic to debate.

Resources

• The Washington Post
• R.future-TV

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