As the Bible study session wrapped up, leaving worshippers to mingle over cake and coffee, Fatemeh, 44, fought back tears as the conversation turned to Sunday\u2019s state election in Saxony-Anhalt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worry about it every day,\u201d she said. \u201cI can\u2019t stop thinking about my son and what might happen to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three years ago she fled Iran with her son after he was stopped by police during a protest over the death<\/a> in police custody of Mahsa Amini. They ended up in Saxony-Anhalt, where, as they await a final decision on their asylum claim, she has watched him blossom into a gifted athlete and develop a knack for repairing vehicles.<\/p>\n Looming over their lives, however, are the politics of Saxony-Anhalt. Polls have suggested that the election on Sunday could yield<\/a> Germany\u2019s first-ever state government led by the far-right Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland (AfD), shattering a postwar taboo and leaving Fatemeh and her son\u2019s fate in the hands of a party that has promised to launch deportations \u201cfrom day one\u201d.<\/p>\n That possibility has left her racked with worry. \u201cThey might send us back to Iran,\u201d she said. \u201cAs a converted Christian, that could mean the death penalty for me.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a glimpse of the stakes at play in the election. Polls suggest the state\u2019s AfD, whose antisemitic, anti-Islam and anti-migrant discourse has contributed to authorities classifying the party<\/a> as \u201cfirmly rightwing extremist\u201d, is poised to win the most votes.<\/p>\n A strong showing in the election could allow it to govern Saxony-Anhalt, turning the eastern state into Germany\u2019s first testing ground for the AfD\u2019s long-running hostility towards migrants, including refugees, Muslims and the LGBTQ+ community.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve never seen emotions run so high over an election,\u201d said Undra Dre\u00dfler of Lamsa, an umbrella group for migrant organisations in the state. Calls were coming in daily, she said, as people wrestled with whether the time had come to pack up their lives and start over again somewhere else.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are really worried and scared,\u201d said Dre\u00dfler. \u201cFor those with migrant backgrounds, it feels like this vote is about their right to exist and their security.\u201d<\/p>\n The pages-long manifesto for the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt promises a \u201ccomplete, 180-degree\u201d overhaul of the approach to migration, from educating refugee children separately to redirecting funds earmarked for integration to a unit focused on remigration, and calling on federal officials to stop recognising Ukrainians as war refugees.<\/p>\n In June, Dre\u00dfler\u2019s organisation appealed to Germany\u2019s 15 other states, calling on them to prepare to take in refugees from Saxony-Anhalt after the election. \u201cIt\u2019s a precautionary measure,\u201d she said. \u201cThe social climate here is already extremely heated. We don\u2019t know what will happen after the elections.\u201d<\/p>\n Left: A billboard in Magdeburg shows the AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund and the slogan \u2018everything is possible\u2019. Photograph: Christian Jungeblodt\/The Guardian. Right: Siegmund addresses delegates at the federal congress of Generation Germany, the party\u2019s youth organisation. Photograph: Jens Schluter\/AFP\/Getty<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Tensions have run high in Saxony-Anhalt since late 2024 when a Saudi man drove his car<\/a> into a crowded Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six people and injuring hundreds more.<\/p>\n Authorities described the attacker as an anti-Islam activist who was sympathetic to the far right. Even so, rightwing voices seized on the moment to scapegoat migrants and minorities for the ills of a state long ravaged by deindustrialisation and depopulation. In the aftermath of the attack, reports of racist attacks soared as migrants and people of colour told of being spat on, threatened and, in some cases, physically attacked.<\/p>\n \u201cBy mid-2025, we had received as many reports of racist insults and attacks as we did in all of 2024,\u201d said Dre\u00dfler. \u201cAs forces on the right become stronger, everyday racism and discrimination have become part of everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n On the streets of Magdeburg, many shared their own brushes with overt racism. \u201cWhen you\u2019re on the street, some people harass you verbally,\u201d said Kirti, 27, a student from India. \u201cThey show you the middle finger.\u201d<\/p>\n Kirti moved to Magdeburg just over a year ago to study for a master\u2019s degree, becoming part of a cohort of foreign students for whom reports of racism were all too familiar. \u201cI heard of one incident where a student was travelling on a train and people were throwing stones at the door, but the door was closed,\u201d he said. \u201cSo people are more concerned about going out. They go out with fear, rather than feeling safe.\u201d<\/p>\n A recent survey suggested that as many as 80% of people with a migration background in Saxony-Anhalt are considering leaving, said Ketevan Asatiani-Hermann, who leads the board of the Advisory Council for Integration and Migration in Magdeburg.<\/p>\n As questions swirl over what the AfD could realistically do if the party garners enough votes to govern alone, a chorus of voices has begun to warn of the fallout. Saxony-Anhalt is a rapidly depopulating state where the average age of 48.2 ranks as <\/a>the highest in Germany. \u201cSo the fear is that we lose people because of what happens on 6 September,\u201d said Asatiani-Hermann. \u201cAnd Saxony-Anhalt is dependent on migrants, so it\u2019s absolutely necessary that they stay here.\u201d<\/p>\n Foreign nationals account for about 9% of the state\u2019s population \u2013 compared with approximately 15% nationwide \u2013 with many playing a critical role in sectors such as hospitality and care for elderly people.<\/p>\n In May, the state medical association said<\/a> that more than one in four doctors working in Saxony-Anhalt\u2019s hospitals, or 27.1%, do not hold a German passport. \u201cIn many regions of the state \u2013 especially in rural areas \u2013 comprehensive healthcare coverage would no longer be possible without foreign colleagues,\u201d it said, <\/a>citing the possibility of longer waiting times or facility closures if some of these doctors were to leave.<\/p>\n \u201cMigrants make up a huge part of healthcare. If you were to take them out, the whole system would collapse,\u201d said Hamid, 41, a paramedic originally from Iran. \u201cSo it\u2019s like if you have a bus and you take off all the tyres. You cannot move.\u201d<\/p>\n Hamid, a paramedic originally from Iran, says without migrants in Magdeburg, the \u2018whole system would collapse\u2019. Photograph: Christian Jungeblodt\/The Guardian<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n At Magdeburg\u2019s synagogue \u2013 whose light-filled foyer includes a mural showing one of the few remaining photographs of the original synagogue that was destroyed in a 1938 pogrom \u2013 <\/strong>people listed their concerns about an AfD majority, from whether it would affect the funding they receive, to what the party\u2019s plans for a \u201cremigration offensive\u201d would mean for the Ukrainian refugees who had joined their congregation after Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion.<\/p>\n The far-right party has also promised to make changes to the school curriculum, in what one party member described as \u201cmore Bismarck, less Hitler\u201d. The underlying assumption was that the focus on the rise of National Socialism and the Holocaust \u2013 as opposed to the unification of Germany by Otto von Bismarck \u2013 had shifted the guilt over what had happened to the current generation, said Igor Mendel Itkin, the synagogue\u2019s rabbi.<\/p>\n \u201cThey think: \u2018If we get rid of this, we will feel free.\u2019 But I think it will be the other way around,\u201d he said. \u201cYou cannot get rid of this ghost; you can pacify it, but you cannot get rid of it. If people don\u2019t learn about it, then something like this could happen again, maybe not with the Jewish people, but maybe with the Muslims.\u201d<\/p>\n He pointed to Saxony-Anhalt\u2019s AfD manifesto, which makes no mention of the Jewish community but includes promises to \u201cexhaust all legal means to restrict the influence\u201d of Islam, even as it notes that Muslims account for just 2-3% of the 2 million people in the state.<\/p>\n An AfD win would put Jewish people in a complicated position, said Maria Schubert from the Synagogue Community of Magdeburg. \u201cIf they win, we don\u2019t know how we will act with them. For me, it\u2019s unimaginable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She worried that it could also be a dilemma faced by others if Sunday\u2019s election turned out to be a bellwether of shifting political forces rather than an outlier. \u201cI see it as a threat, in that this could just be the beginning. In other German states, many are looking at Saxony-Anhalt to kick things off,\u201d she said. \u201cI mean, at the beginning, nobody took Hitler seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n The AfD was approached for comment.<\/p>\n With contribution from Niclas Boenki<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Bible study session wrapped up, leaving worshippers to mingle over cake and coffee, Fatemeh, 44, fought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1185925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":["post-1185924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-news","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117212539000010941","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1185924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1185925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1185924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1185924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1185924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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