2023-08-26 17:10:34
The village of Jamel in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is now internationally known. Television stations around the world reported on the village, where neo-Nazis are trying to set the tone and are prevented from doing so by civil society. In the front gardens there are Reich flags, on one wall a huge picture of a blond family next to the words “free, social, national”, a grill with the inscription “Happy Holocaust” and a signpost showing Hitler’s birthplace Braunau am Inn.
Even on Friday evening, these landmarks can be seen through police cordons. Swastika graffiti appeared on the festival site in the morning, and the police decided to keep local residents and the several thousand festival-goers far away from each other.
Those arriving were greeted in Grevesmühlen, the next larger town from the cul-de-sac village of Jamel, at the train station by a large “Fight Zecken” graffiti. The village of about ten properties is a ten minute bus ride away. The concentration of brown ideas is particularly high here. Since the 1990s, a right-wing settlement project has been running around the well-known, previously convicted right-wing extremist Sven Krüger with the aim of creating a “National Socialist model village”. In fact, this goal has been achieved. In 2007, the mayor of the surrounding community said: “We gave up on Jamel.”
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But only actually, because although many residents moved away through intimidation, violence and deliberately looking the other way, there is still a married couple, Horst and Birgit Lohmeyer, who oppose the right-wing extremists “so as not to leave the village to the neo-Nazis”. Threats from her neighbors have become part of her everyday life, and the arson attack on her property a few years ago represented a drastic climax in the conflict.
The fire in the Lohmeyers’ barn eight years ago.dpa
The festival area smells of tobacco and mosquito spray. Surrounded by fields and forest, a large market has been set up next to the two stages on one side of the entrance. At the stand of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, speaker Lorenz Blumenthaler explains that the festival is “incredibly important”. “I’ll talk to you and have to look at the Reichskriegsflagge behind you.” He says that until they were here, many people couldn’t believe that neo-Nazis were so rampant. While both right-wing extremist marches and right-wing extremist acts of violence had increased in the past year, especially in East Germany, Jamel must serve as a warning. The fact that the Lohmeyers didn’t allow themselves to be intimidated is also a source of inspiration.
Suddenly the Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Manuela Schleswig (SPD), is on the stage next to the Lohmeyers. She thanks everyone present, but especially the Lohmeyers, the applause that follows lasts a few minutes. You can see that the couple is a bit uncomfortable. They leave the stage to the artists again. Before moshpits to “the perfect wave”, the band Juli urges the audience to be extra loud “so that assholes over there can hear us”. Singer Bosse also emphasizes “full solidarity with the Lohmeyers.” Fury in the Slaughterhouse also says that they are extra loud for the “ass fiddles” on the other side of the police barrier. After Madsen, the Lohmeyers enter the stage one last time and wish the sweaty audience a good night.
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