All his nine hundred seventy five dozens of algerians a chase through the streets of our foot in communist east germany. During all this uproar there were regular calls of algerians out. September nine hundred eighty seven a teenager from mozambique is attacked and kicked to death and starts for it also in communist east germany. When so it was but when Something Like that happened people quickly tried to brush it under the carpet so they could say our friendships stronger than what happened. In june one thousand nine hundred eighty six a contract worker from mozambique is lidge by neo nazis on a train near ponce dam in communist east germany his family a lied to about his death. Im glad i now know how my son died and i hope the men who did it will finally be held accountable. A warm seemingly peaceful summers day in affluent and yet in the town center today the eleventh of august one nine hundred seventy five a monday something would unfold that had never happened in east germany before. Of them of utah off and things were very hectic down at the station because of the events taking place on the effluents Central Square we were armed and issued with our equipment and then sent out right away to restore order. Some skaters spend it because. On the off in august it was two offices against maybe fifty people in autumn fit all. Five hundred fifty it was hopeless from the start i. Often find i was. Afeard became the scene of unbelievable mayhem for several days groups of up to three hundred germans chased algerian contract workers through the city center beating them with planks and sticks that anger ultimately turned against the Police Officers to. The swat us house tomorrow and then it was the first time in my six Years Service with the police that i was scared for the fact that if im standing arms as well that when but i think of it was unpredictable the crowd were largely drunk the two came side bunked a computer. Is this much you get this crowd phenomena. You can write off much talk in the morning through. It was a program atmosphere or course to move your body as much of. That and marshalls was working as a Police Officer in africa city center at the time. He too was surprised by the outbreak of xenophobia rage but he knew why this anger was aimed at the algerians. They came to east germany to work and they needed accommodation. Because they needed somewhere to live a whole new block of flats for which to families from air force one already measured curtains was made available to the algerians i was going to be called. For by them but often ardent you dont misbehave all the families from air force were told from one day to the next that they would have to wait another year or two for a flat when the going on. Ok i wasnt talking about. The stands in process the case is unregistered nationalist tendencies among the populace the algerians are lazy and not so hardworking as the germans when the accusation and more why are these lazy black guys brought here even though they were innocent the algerian workers were now monitored and photographed by stars the spies five men from africa were investigated as troublemakers taken into custody and sentenced to prison but the algerians didnt escape unharmed either some were deported end of discussion east german leadership hoped that would make the conflicts go away. Starting in the early one nine hundred seventy s. Thousands of workers from non European Countries came to east Germany First from algeria then from cuba mozambique vietnam and angola according to the official message the citizens of east germany in the foreign contract workers were building the socialist state together there was Cultural Exchange and meetings on an equal footing with the newcomers became members of the socialist workers collective the two groups also spent their leisure time together at least according to the party line. Up the eighteen cubans have found friends here friends who will still be there for them when theyre no longer with them theyll do it through the experiences the cubans have shared with them a connectedness with the pioneers of socialism on the american continent. But outside the state ordained friendship meetings the dominant reaction to the new arrivals was rejection. As last march up the aadhaar and there was a defensive attitude in all areas of everyday life. They could take something away from us girls or to dance for example the hostility came from them being foreigners but also because the state imposed them on the people these workers were supposed to close gaps in industry the point of a war for he good looking in the industry they were rejected because they were the product of a state organized policy or going to put a pick up going into. Foreign contract workers lived in separate accommodation in a sealed off world they werent supposed to have any private contacts with the people of east germany as a result fake news spread very rapidly it was said that the foreigners were paid in western money and given preferential treatment that was an explosive mix of rumors in a state where everything was it short supply. Isnt the only verse beautiful they dont know how we lived they said we got deutsche marks west german money you know given just so lonely. The whole time i was there i wanted to have an open day. As i did you look at that never happened the ideology didnt permit it. The afternoon. And if the papers and television didnt educate the people then how were they to understand how we lived these all and no milo bill go. Its fish eve yet. It didnt stop with mere disgruntlement. Hundreds of racist attacks were committed in east germany. Historian harry viable has researched them there was then a phobic slogans and insults and Violent Attacks riots and even murders the majority of the perpetrators were young men victims largely foreign contract workers. Pretty good my research has revealed around seven hundred violent confrontations between germans and foreign nationals that started in the sixtys and continued until the collapse of east germany of these two hundred were pogroms or program like confrontations this racist climate in east germany was growing shots of. Every year in freiburg near howler one weekend in september was traditionally all about wine a wine queen was crowned and there was a procession with all kinds of other entertainments. But on the twenty fourth of september one thousand nine hundred Seventy Eight this Wine Festival had a bloody phenolic Police Officers set their dogs on cuban contract workers three cubans were seriously injured by dog bites and admitted to hospital. Cuban leader fidel castro was livid when he heard about it thats exactly how the plantation owners used to treat their slaves in cuba he said. Coolly or gothia early vasty cuban ambassador to east germany immediately set off. Freiburg. Yeah keep the live go until this one with a disappointment that fidel told me very clearly that this was absolutely unacceptable or at all and. That there was nothing wrong with normal Police Operations but that the use of dogs was too much. Fidel clearly instructed me to do everything i could to stop anything like that ever happening again but. With the ball or else cuba would immediately sever relations with east germany get a little better for all the important we have a lot of. These incidents strained relations between the socialist states patching them up again was difficult for the diplomats above all nothing was to leak to the outside months later the relationship was severely tested yet again. Support the twelfth of august nine hundred seventy nine cuban contract workers and dozens of east germans got into a fight outside the xylo town nightclub. There already been racist incidents and brutal attacks the day before three cuban contract workers were randomly beaten up an imbued by three massenburg locals in the town center in response some cubans decided to fight back. You sure towns for they go for they stormed up to the dance floor and spread out across the tables i cant remember if they also attacked guests they definitely smashed up everything that was on the tables the alice was not intentional on calling the. Host bush was in the nightclub with his girlfriend from mess about that evening he was a west german industrial worker employed as an assemblyman at the nearby chemical plant. On the phone before we met he told us hed incited an attack on the cubans by making racist statements about the black monkeys. But when the cameras started rolling he suddenly gave us a slightly different story. So i know. Suddenly this one guy a west german i think shouted attack i can still hear it today so we went out after them. On the phone you told us it was you who called for the attack i just called for them to be chased theres no statute of limitations for murder. His caution is justified because the chase ended fatally for two cuban contract workers. Try. To were pushed over the edge of the bridge into the zone that was the aim and nobody thought about it being summer or these are life you had there been any you can even if there was a much water in the river twenty thirty centimeters at most one seem a metre there wont be a thing at all they fell seven or eight meters into Shallow Water thats why they died. In one cuban man who was seriously injured trying to reach deeper water in the middle of the river lot amens all whod also been in the nightclub that evening tried to rescue him he was twenty at the time sensitive guy with artistic talent and a member of the mental brothers artist group and sometimes performed in the club but his rescue attempt failed. Obviously and thats no they have plenty of laws that you know i saw a wine bottle being thrown at him and it hit him smack on the head he went under i took my jacket off and gave it to someone i ran down and jumped in somewhere here would been i knew. It up and play with how i started to dive right away when i swam under water and tried to find him awful lot of us through to him then i thought i would find him. Over. But he didnt to cubans died three days later the corpse of delphin gretta was fished from azhar. The next day. Garcia products body was found as well. Kind of a hill to death of the who we werent able to determine a cause of death with any certainty thats because the body has lain for several days in the zala in the middle of some real target it was in an advanced state of decomposition it says of the one at the fight focus looking of using. Water romanovs he performed the autopsy on one of the two dead men both autopsy reports state nonnatural cause of death no further details. Its quite as authentic to its political as in i read in the Police Reports that there had been a confrontation between a group of germans and a group of cubans and that the cubans jumped into the sauna to escape and indeed is article three to. The police and the Public Prosecutors Office launched an investigation in mass aboard the stars the report stated that the criminal responsibility of five east german citizens is currently being checked on suspicion of involvement in the incident but suddenly everything ground to a halt the investigations were shut down on orders from the highest level of the east german government. Massive book of Party Leadership meaning hanukkah and also interior minister dickel were involved in covering up the murder of the two cubans in mezzeh berg from the outset role model. In their support. In east germany events were covered up and suppressed in cuba they were punished all the cubans who were allegedly involved in the confrontation outside the nightclub were sent to the natori a scum in our state prison they were given long sentences because the socialist friendship had to remain unblemished east german leadership acted from a position of strength towards allied developing countries such as cuba whenever there were confrontations between germans and contract workers the foreign nationals were sent home no attempt was made to establish guilt. The ambassador at the time Julio Garcia Olivet us remembers that the killing of the two cuban contract workers was under no circumstances to put any further strain on the already difficult relationship between east germany and cuba he wasnt told how his fellow countrymen really died. I mean if you dont have the brief i got from fidel and raul castro was the Economic Cooperation was the most important thing and immediately afterwards fidel even told me in writing that i was to prevent any discussion between the party in east germany and the party in cuba. It was a difficult task the ambassador was informed of fights and stabbings almost every weekend. But they were the result of the Culture Shock experienced by the young cubans and the young germans but they also occurred on saturday nights when everyone was out drinking and dancing. When these clashes didnt just affect cubans algerians and yugoslavs were also affected. But the calls came in about fights all over the place it was like a world war. Where i got to know i mean being. In socialist cuba the hostilities the contract workers were exposed to in east germany remain a taboo topic to this day. Thats particularly true of the fatal events in massacred in august nine hundred seventy nine. Nevertheless we did manage to find someone and have anna who was actually there Marcello Figaro or a friend of the two dead men he too got beaten up at the nightclub the atmosphere had already been very tense days before he remembers. Getting one of the cubans felt they were very much hated in those days there were a lot of confrontations and insults the cubans were called guppies like the fish its all its a symbol of persona of course we felt insulted by that and there were many insults about fidel and cuba. The family of the contract worker i would gothia parents who was killed in massive bergen one hundred seventy nine live in very modest conditions in santa clara a three hour drive from havana his mother still deeply feels the pain of his death even thirty eight years later. When. He was a good decent boy always cheerful he had a good heart. With the words because. Its the first time the family have heard about what the stasi files had to say about the death of their son and brother they are horrified and shocked they were left in the dark about the exact circumstances of his death all these years up until now they believed it had been an accident. Something to go. With oh my god oh they sent us a telegram that we were to see the dog didnt have ana i wanted to go because i wanted to know what had happened and whether he was to blame for a fight. I knew he wasnt and that it was wrong that he died a good decent boy. That was everything on. Rollos mother and his sisters regularly visit his grave in the cemetery in santa clara even after thirty eight years his lost still haunts them. Found the young mother to be strong. Where it is. Now they know how roll guffey up how that died in mass a book they want retribution. The old little one will be the man i want to tell the germans that my brother was sent on a trip to get his training. This terrible deed that led to his death has to be investigated by a lawyer and by the law. We as a family in cuba want justice. So. In the one nine hundred eighty s. The number of contract workers brought in to help the failing economy rose rapidly in one thousand nine hundred one there were twenty four thousand of the many german by nine hundred eighty nine that number had almost quadrupled the conflicts came to a head in light of the worsening supply situation foreign contract workers were suspected of hoarding goods and smuggling them back to their home countries. The writer land of shots and the form of mozambique and contract work i believe no massive era witnessed how the state all danes solidarity became nothing but an empty slogan shop so i was doing research for a book on mozambique and workers in a vehicle and rifle factory at the time. Because with the year. Before i what i asked the people of east germany the Party Secretary and many others the Party Secretary said our contract workers were our class brothers workers. With about five x. Away doubt that humans are glass and he said all that while the tape was running on us i doubt its because i but afterwards he told me i have a daughter here look at a shes beautiful. Shes nineteen but if she came home with a black guy i throw out a huge theres the i was them her ocean ice. Man was the guy and. The problem was that nobody knew anything about us i mean we werent asked who we were. Out there. That had. We were just seen as workers every worker is also a person but there was nothing human at this. Enter of the debate. Nish send me the point send me the point yeah. They never experienced hostility or racist incidents towards mozambicans they say just a general lack of interest in them where they came from how they lived what they were excited about hardly anyone in east germany wanted to know thats why real friendships were rare. Happy of any kenya lamp would im looking for i met somewhere real friendships developed not just between girls and your boys there were some who initially jumpers for you for christmas comes in mittens when i met people who came to the accommodation and who cooked and celebrated birthdays and i did feel that something developed. How can i find something and i believe those were isolated cases. Thats why would you consider brave steps by both sides it wasnt one sided so while. It was common as ill be more than even the mozambican government negotiated an agreement that ignored the social aspects. D. D. Had this also one hundred to the guy the sociology of the ships that applied to. Be our turn to hear this a limo found out what happened when friendship turned into love they live in saxony they met in the eightys he was a mozambican contract worker while she was completing her training at a church. For me stops at a gun store atlas there was obvious racism and sexism too in east germany that something that wasnt really talked or written about i experienced it personally hardly Anyone Around me believed me comic clumped water. Thats why beatus early most started recording her experiences in a diary the result is a private chronicle of everyday racism in east germany. Hearten a sunday in some one thousand nine hundred eighty eight we sat on the grass away from where the steam is docked where a lot of pe