Coming Home: Media and Returning Diaspora in Israel and Germany

CHAPTER FOUR: MEDIA AND RETURNING DIASPORA IN GERMANY

CHAPTER FOUR MEDIA AND RETURNING DIASPORA IN GERMANY This chapter, like the previous one, begins with an exploration of major adaptation patterns among FSU immigrants and outstanding issues concerning their cultural identity in their country of origin and the changes that occurred after immigration to Germany. It then proceeds to analyze their media consumption in the Russian and German languages and concludes by positing a possible connection between these immigrants’ media consumption and their integration into German society. “I AM AN ALIEN HERE; THIS PLACE IS FOREIGN”: PATTERNS OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ADAPTATION AMONG IMMIGRANTS FROM THE FSU IN GERMANY The most outstanding feature of the identity of most participants was a painful family memory—and sometimes a personal one—connected with the tragic history of the German community in the Soviet Union during World War II, especially deportation to Siberia and Kazakhstan and forced labor in Stalin’s work camps. Persecution of ethnic Germans by the Soviet regime continued after the war; some of the participants were not accepted into universities or were denied promotion at work because of their ethnic affiliation . Moreover, most participants, even the younger ones, suffered hostile attitudes on the part of the Russian population; the best example was their having been commonly addressed as “Nazis.” As a result, many participants, particularly those born after the war, sought to assimilate into Russian society and conceal their German roots. In this regard, the participants, such as Antonina (see below), reported that they were ashamed to speak German with their parents and therefore completely lost facility in their mother tongue. 101 102 COMING HOME Antonina, fifty-five, old-timer: I didn’t learn German from my mother; it was too dangerous. My mother was called a “Nazi” her whole life and all her brothers worked in the labor camps. My father suffered from this, too; he wasn’t accepted to the law faculty. I remember that during my childhood, my mother was so afraid of persecution that even when she sang German songs, she forbade me to sing them in the street. From a very young age, I learned that it was something forbidden, something to be ashamed of. That’s why I didn’t try to learn German from my parents and came here without knowing a word. Nevertheless, despite persecution by the Soviet regime and the Russian population’s overall hostility toward Germans, some of the participants succeeded in preserving an ancient German dialect and maintained some knowledge of German tradition and culture, especially older participants born before the outbreak of World War II who lived in villages and small towns with a high percentage of German residents. The same is true of young participants, such as Larissa (see below), who were raised by their grandparents; they, too, displayed a certain cultural continuity and familiarity with the German language and culture prior to immigration. Larissa, forty-one, old-timer: In our family, we spoke mostly German. Naturally, my grandmother played a leading role in this; she spoke only German and hardly a word of Russian. Hence, when I arrived here, I knew a little bit of German. The traditions were also preserved, mostly thanks to grandmother . She was in charge of Easter and cooked German food. . . . My husband, for example, knows nothing about ancient German tradition , because he grew up without a grandmother; for him, everything was lost. Furthermore, because of long-term persecution for their German roots and partial affinity to the German culture and language, prior to immigration most participants shared the feeling that they were returning to their historic homeland where they would receive a warm welcome from their co-ethnics. Only a small minority of the participants realized this aspiration, however, most of whom were elderly people aged seventy and older, who claimed that they indeed felt at home in Germany. The case of Liza, eighty-one, is particularly characteristic of this group of participants: Liza was born in a German village, on the banks of the Volga River. During World War II, she and her family had been forcibly deported to Siberia, where they felled trees at a work camp. Even after the war, she suffered discrimination and insults on the part of the Russian population because of her ethnic affiliation. These 103 MEDIA AND RETURNING DIASPORA IN GERMANY circumstances engendered an ardent desire to immigrate to Germany, which she considered to be her historic homeland: I really...