Kemal Kayankaya—Frankfurt’s Wise-Cracking Turkish-German Detective

By Heidi Noroozy

In the 1960s, with economic recovery from the devastation of World War II well underway, West Germany found itself with a booming economy and a shortage of labor for its growing manufacturing, construction, and mining industries. A guest worker treaty with Turkey solved the problem, and soon young Turks were filling the labor gap. The arrangement was meant to be temporary, at least initially, with each guest worker returning to Turkey after two years. This policy had advantages for both nations: Germany gained a much-needed workforce without having to integrate a distinctly alien cultural and religious minority into its society. Turkey would be guaranteed a generation of highly skilled workers when its citizens returned home—a great boon to its own economy.

But things didn’t turn out that way. Many Turks chose to remain in Germany and raise families, even if they remained on the fringes of society. Because these workers were classified as “migrants” and not “immigrants,” and since their children born on German soil did not automatically receive German citizenship, the country became home to an entire generation (or two) of residents who were neither entirely German nor fully Turkish. It is not a situation conducive to intercultural harmony.

Against this historical background, German crime novelist Jakob Arjouni has created one of the most memorable characters in the mystery genre. Private Investigator Kemal Kayankaya is the son of Turkish migrant workers and was orphaned at a young age. Adopted by a German couple, he grew up in Frankfurt, speaks flawless German with a Hessian accent and not a word of Turkish. He’s an avid fan of the Gladbach soccer club, and he eats pickled herring with his breakfast coffee, yet none of these German attributes save him from relentless prejudice and stereotyping. Faced with his dark skin and Turkish features, people constantly mistake him for the garbage collector, street vendor, and even undocumented immigrant. Never mind that, unlike most of his Turkish-German compatriots, he’s in possession of a rare treasure: a German passport.

In a series of five hardboiled detective novels published over the course of nearly 30 years (from 1985 to 2012), Arjouni holds up a mirror to German society. Like the best heroes of the genre, Kayankaya is a relentless champion of the downtrodden and dispossessed. He’s fearless and dogged, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking lone wolf with his own set of moral standards. However, Kayankaya’s ethnicity and the intercultural battles he faces add a whole new subtext to the classic PI tale.

His cases take him through the seediest parts of Frankfurt: dark alleys, brothels, and strip clubs with their pimps, prostitutes, gangsters, corrupt cops, and government officials on the take. The novels explore themes of social marginalization, racism, and unequal distribution of justice, sometimes set against the backdrop of larger historical events, such as the breakup of Yugoslavia. Other themes are xenophobia and police corruption (Happy Birthday, Türke!/Happy Birthday, Turk!), eco-terrorism and political culpability (Mehr Bier/More Beer), immigration fraud and the illegal sex trade (Ein Man, Ein Mord/One Man, One Murder, which won the 1992 German Crime Fiction Prize), racketeering and the lingering effects of the brutal Balkan wars (Kismet), and religious intolerance (Bruder Kemal/Brother Kemal).

Kayankaya’s tough-guy image is tempered by his vulnerability. His Achilles heel is his ethnicity, and even his German citizenship doesn’t offer much security when corrupt officials rob him of his ID and toss him in a cell with a group of illegals slated for deportation. In violent confrontations with the bad guys, he often ends up in worse shape that his opponents, but when it comes to battling the daily humiliation of prejudice, no one is a match for his acerbic and often cynical wit. His great talent is to twist hurtful attitudes and toss them back at an adversary in a way that makes the other person look like a fool. Take this exchange in a scene from Ein Man, Ein Mord, where the detective tries to enlist the help of an immigration official to find the missing Thai woman he’s been hired to locate. The official won’t be deterred from her mistaken assumption that Citizen Kayankaya has come to renew his residency permit. She asks him his name. 

 

“Kemal Kayankaya.”

“Spelling?”

“Pretty good. But I do have some trouble with those foreign words.”

With the series spanning several decades, Arjouni allows his protagonist to age in real time. The first book, Happy Birthday, Türke (1985), opens on Kayankaya’s 26^th birthday, which he celebrates alone in his office until a client shows up and he shares a piece of cake with her. In 2012’s Bruder Kemal, Kayankaya is 53 and his life has become a great deal more stable. He’s in a steady relationship, has cut way back on his drinking, and even has his own website. Kayankaya’s transformation reflects changes in Germany’s attitude toward its Turkish community. When he took on his first case in the mid-1980s, a Turkish-born German citizen was almost unheard of. Today, according to one statistic, nearly two-thirds of German Turks hold German passports, thanks to immigration reforms in recent years. But just as they do in real life, prejudices die hard in Kayakaya’s fictional world, and the detective, who claims to have never seen the inside of a mosque, finds himself mistaken for an Islamic terrorist.

Jakob Arjouni’s cross-cultural detective series is destined to remain at 5 books. Sadly, the 48-year-old author died earlier this year after losing a battle with pancreatic cancer. Although I read the series in the original German, the first four books are available in English, and the translation of Bruder Kemal is slated for U.S. publication in September 2013. I am pleased to see these stories reach an international audience, for while Arjouni intended to hold up a mirror to his native Germany, the themes he explores are universal problems that plague societies around the world, and many of us may see our own faces reflected in Kemal Kayankaya’s Turkish eyes.

In a Bind

By Alli Sinclair

Billions of dollars, perhaps trillions, are spent every year on hair products and styling. It’s a lucrative industry and is a classic example of us humans obsessing over our noggins. This fascination isn’t new. In fact, the ancient world took this one step further—by altering their skulls.

Head binding, also known as artificial cranial deformation, dates back to 45,000 BC. The ancient Egyptians, Syrians, Maltese, Russians, Germans, and Australian Aborigines have all undertaken various forms of skull “enhancement” by binding their skull or placing cradleboards around a baby’s head to change the shape of their head.

Zip over to the Americas, and you’ll find the Mayans, Incas, and the tribes of the Chinookan and Choctaw people in North America also undertook the custom of deforming skulls as part of their culture. The Choctaw, Chehalis, and Nooksack Indians practised head flattening and on the coastal of Peru, not far from Lima, the Paracas culture had an array of altered head shapes.

Scientists have discovered at least five different shapes of elongated skulls in different cemeteries in the Paracas region. The most remarkable being a site called Chongos, not far from the quaint town of Pisco where the famous cone-shaped skulls were discovered.

Archaeologists specialising in the Mayans have discovered how altered skulls vary, depending on their geography. Skulls found in the lowlands had a slanted appearance, while skulls discovered in the highlands had an erect shape. They’ve even unearthed skulls that have a division down the middle and two distinct holes. The Mayans believed that every object has an essence, including the elements. While the mother was giving birth, the Mayans ensured the house was closed so the evil wind couldn’t harm the baby and as the baby’s soul was no yet tethered to the baby, the infants were even more vulnerable. Binding the baby’s head was akin to creating a roof over one’s head, and therefore a form of protection for the young child that would stay with it forever.

Some archaeologists believe the act of altering one’s skull was to create a “desirable” shape to make the person more aesthetically pleasing and on Tomman Island in Vanuatu, where it is still practised today, elongating the skull signifies intelligence and being closer to spirits. Whether it was for social status, such as an Incan nobleman, or for an affiliation with a tribe, the act of altering one’s skull causes great controversy in the archaeological world and certainly makes for some interesting discussions. Whatever the reasons, humans have always taken great care to alter their bodies, including their hair and head. So next time you go to the hairdresser, be careful what you ask for!

Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany

By Supriya Savkoor
 

Photo: Mohsin4376

True story: Hans Massaquoi—the son of a German mother and an African father—came of age in Germany in the era when Adolph Hitler’s popularity surged, right through World War II (and the ethnic cleansing of “non-Aryans”), and beyond. It's unbelievable that he survived, but he also never saw the inside of any of the concentration camps or gas chambers in which millions of European Jews perished. He, like most of his compatriots, didn’t even know of the existence of these death chambers until after the war.

I was stunned when I first heard about Massaquoi’s truly unique life. It was on the radio during one of my morning commutes back in January and, sadly, the story was actually part of his obituary. He'd died that day, at the ripe old age of 87. His passing marks the end of an era, and yet what a legacy he leaves behind. A full, rich, exceptional life—one I’m surprised that I, and perhaps you as well, had not heard about until now.

As soon as I heard about him, I looked Massaquoi up on the Internet. Turns out he’d written his autobiography in 1999 (and still we hadn’t heard of him?). I convinced my local library to order a copy, though it didn’t take much convincing. Soon, I found myself spellbound as I flew through the book.

Hans's grandfather, Momolo Massaquoi,
had been king of his Vai tribe in Liberia.
Amidst political infighting, he abdicated,
but continued to play an influential role
in Liberian politics and society.

(Photo: Mohsin4376)

Massaquoi was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1926. His parents met when his grandfather, a member of African royalty, served as the consul general of Liberia in Germany, bringing over part of his large family. At the time, Hans's father, Al-Haj Massaquoi, was studying in Dublin, occasionally visiting his own father in Hamburg as well as wooing Bertha Baetz. Eventually, Bertha gave birth to Hans, or Hans-Jürgen, as he was named. When Hans was still a toddler, Al-Haj, reportedly quite the ladies’ man (whom Bertha could never get to the altar), left Germany.

Massaquoi’s upbringing in Germany was anything but easy. His loving, devoted mother took up a job as a nurse to support them both, but she was dismissed when Massaquoi was still a child (and, as he found out many years later, because of his race). He grew up way too accustomed to the constant racial taunts from other children—the most common one, which followed him everywhere for years, was Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger (Negro, Negro, chimney sweep)!—as well as the institutionalized racism in Nazi Germany at school and, later, at work. He became accustomed to stares and hearing that he was ugly, often from total strangers. Massaquoi’s stories about the savage cruelty he endured from teachers amd principals, with no recourse, as well as not being allowed to legally date or attend university (despite his ambition, thirst for learning, and impeccable academic record) is at times difficult to read. He learned to hate the way he looked as well as suppress his angst, even with his mother, whom he adored but did not want to hurt.

Still, in his innocence and naivete, the young Massaquoi proudly wore the swastika on his school uniform. He desperately longed to join the Hitler Youth movement along with his classmates and neighborhood friends. He was turned down for being a non-Aryan, of course, but he felt shame rather than anger at not garnering that very overt symbol of acceptance. He had also learned to revere the Führer, love his country, and fear and hate the Jews, right up until adolescence when he realized he was considered one of the "enemy.”

One of the most astounding stories comes early in his autobiography, when a school-age Massaquoi and his mother visit a new “zoo” in Hamburg. To their utter shock, one of the exhibits displays African people, tribals who had been captured, caged, and displayed like dangerous, wild animals. Massaquoi describes not only his shock and his mother’s outrage, but also their utter discomfort when the crowd, both inside and outside the cage, all begin staring at Massaquoi, filling him with bitter shame and contributing to the low self-esteem he continues to feel throughout his early life in Germany.

Later, when Allied bombs rain down on Hamburg during the war years, he and his mother make nightly runs to their nearest bomb shelter, as does everyone else in the city. One of the country’s largest industrial cities, Hamburg was considered crucial to supplying the German military with weapons and other essentials. Eventually, more than 40,000 of its citizens die from these war-time bombings, and Massaquoi constantly wonders how he, of all people, manages to survive.

After the war, Massaquoi works a few grueling years as a factory machinist, then as a jazz musician (at a time when jazz was considered the music of undesirable non-Aryans and thus banned), and finally as a black market smuggler. Obtaining a Liberian passport, he is finally able to leave Germany in the early 1950s. He makes the long journey by ship to Liberia, where he’s reunited with his long-estranged father and begins a new life. 

No spoilers here; you’ll have to read the book to find out about his interesting reunion with Al-Haj as well as the many other members of Hans’s royal family, including a brother he hadn’t known existed and a grandmother who summons him to Lagos, Nigeria. His adventures in Africa are fascinating, including his perceptions about race, ethnicity, family, and his place among it all. His adventures around Liberia range from rubbing elbows with the country’s elite, living for a time in squalor, and visiting rural tribal areas. (Regarding the latter, monkey stew, anyone?)

Somewhere along the way, Massaquoi, along with many young German men he knew, decides he wants to make his way to the United States, where he envisions a promising new life in the land of the free. When he finally arrives in the late 1950s, living on a third continent and the most diverse country of all, he’s stunned to discover not only segregation but another form of institutionalized racism, the hypocritical kind. Again, reunions with his German friends and family, American immigrants like him, prove surprising.

(Photo: Mohsin4376)

Because the numerous pictures in the book make no secret of it, it’s no spoiler to tell you that despite all the hurdles he has to cross, Massaquoi eventually achieves the American dream. He becomes the editor of African-American magazine, Ebony, marries, buys a house in a Chicago suburb, raises two high-achieving kids (one a doctor, another a lawyer), and regularly travels all over the world, interviewing the likes of world leaders and celebrities. (Photos in the book include one of Massaquoi pretend sparring with boxing champ Muhammad Ali and another in which he and his good friend, author Alex Haley, are poring over important-looking papers.) 

Though Massaquoi had always assumed he'd been the only black German during the Nazi era, he later learns there had been at least a few others, all of whom had perished in the concentration camps. On his return to Germany in 1966, two decades after he'd left, he's surprised to discover the country had been rebuilt as though it had never been through the war, was thriving, and had seemingly become as diverse as the United States. There was even a large subculture of mixed-race Germans, the result of American soldiers based in Germany after the war. He also pieces together the fate of friends, family, and nemeses in Germany and Africa from across the years. 

Massaquoi’s book, Destined to Witness, is not particularly prosaic, but it’s spellbinding nonetheless. If you can, get your hands on a copy. And RIP, Hans. You were a truly remarkable man.

Riding the Rails

Vintage train in Bad Doberan, Germany
Photo by Felix O.

 

By Heidi Noroozy

As a child, I had fantasies about living the life of a hobo, hopping on and off trains, traveling to wherever the rails led. As an adult, I realize I hadn’t considered the practicalities well enough to appreciate the downside of such a life: the lack of creature comforts and regular meals—the danger. But back then, it wasn’t the lifestyle that beckoned to me or even the sense of freedom and boundless horizons. I just loved trains.

One memorable rail-riding experience came when I was 11. That summer, my family and I spent some weeks in a small town called Tabarz in Thuringia, a forested region of gently rolling hills in East Germany. A network of hiking trails crisscrossed the landscape and led through the woods from one red-roofed village to the next. We’d spend long afternoons wandering those loamy trails, and when dusk fell, we’d return home by way of the Bimmelbahn, a narrow-gauge train that stopped at every tiny hamlet along its route. The train got its name from the little bell the engineer would ring on approaching a station. (Bimmeln means to ring a bell.) I could have ridden that little train all day long and never tired of listening to its cheerful chimes as it pulled into the next town. To this day, decades later, I can still conjure up the rich, piney scent of those woodsy trails and the ting-a-ling of the Bimmelbahn’s bell.

When I embark on a trip and need to choose a mode of transport, plane travel usually wins out for the sake of expediency. But if I had my druthers, I’d pick the rails every time. Most modern trains give a smooth and silent ride, but sometimes on a regional route, you can still find the old rattle-traps that are more like a historic steam engine than the high-tech, computerized machines of today. I love the way they go clickety clack down the line, slowly at first then faster and faster as they gather speed, until the world whizzes by to a staccato rhythm.

Hiking in the Thuringian Forest

Once, years ago, I had a bit of extra time and rode the rails straight across the United States, a journey that took three days. By the end of that trip, my mind was filled with images of wind rippling through golden wheat fields, green-flanked mountains reaching up to stroke the clouds, and the dramatic landscapes of the California’s Pacific coast, where waterfalls tumble down rocky cliffs and the sea carves blue coves out of the rugged shoreline. I gained a new appreciation for the varied landscapes of the country where I live.

I’ve had some fun times on trains. Once, on an overnight trip from Madrid to Algeciras at the southern tip of Spain, my two friends and I shared a compartment with three Spanish teenagers. The six of us played hand after hand of Crazy Eights throughout the long night. I understood no more than five or six words of Spanish at the beginning of the card game, which we took to calling “Ochos Locos,” but by dawn I could count to ten and rattle off the names of suits as though I’d been playing cards in Spanish for years.

Not every rail-riding experience has been quite so much fun. On a 1980 trip from Oslo to East Berlin, the train was late and I missed an evening connection somewhere in the middle of Denmark. The next train heading my way didn’t leave until six the next morning, so I settled in for a long night of strong coffee and a good book in the station’s tiny café. By the time we made it to the East German border, I discovered that, somewhere along the way, I’d lost the visa, stamped on a separate piece of paper, that I needed to enter the GDR. Possibly it had fallen out of my bag at that little café in Denmark.

GDR border crossing
Photo by Felix O.

Certain that I’d be unceremoniously tossed off the train and left behind in the no man’s land that existed between the two German states, I explained my situation to the East German border guard—hoping I didn’t look as nervous as I felt. But he just shrugged, told me to get a new visa as soon as I could, and moved on to the next passenger.

The shops, and therefore the travel agencies, were closed for the day when we reached Berlin, and the next day was Sunday. So I spent two nights as an illegal alien in the German Democratic Republic before getting my visa sorted out. No one seemed to care except me.

These days, I may have abandoned my over-romanticized image of the hobo’s life, but I still feel a thrill of excitement when I climb aboard a train. Sometimes it’s not the destination that matters but the thrill of the journey that gets you there.