The hate destroyer

One of the most determined opponents of far-right extremism in Germany is 65-year-old retiree Irmela Mensah Schramm. Armed with oven scrapers, nail polish remover, water, and a can of spray paint, Schramm has made it her mission to destroy blatantly hateful graffiti.

Despite the fact that Nazi symbols like swastikas are banned in Germany, far-right groups promote their brand of hate in the form of graffiti and professionally made stickers and posters.

For Schramm, it started 25 years ago, when, on her way to work, she saw a Nazi sticker proclaiming "Freedom for Rudolf Hess" - a Nazi leader who had been imprisoned for war crimes after the Holocaust. Schramm thought about the sticker all day. On her way home that evening, she took out her keys and scratched the sticker off.

"Every human can do something and if you don’t do anything yourself you cannot change anything," said Schramm. "I think if you keep silent you are complicit. And I just don’t want to be complicit when the social climate is tainted by hatred."

Over the last four years alone, Schramm has removed 39,000 stickers and posters. She spends about 100 hours each month and around 300 euros ($436) on materials. Before destroying the hate symbols, she carefully documents them, taking photos of the graffiti, noting its location and the date.

Bite-sized propaganda

The eastern Berlin suburb of Lichtenberg is known for being a hive of far-right activity and is one of the areas Schramm frequents. She carries her cleaning tools in a white cloth bag, which reads "Against Nazis," and scans surfaces for offensive stickers: drainpipes, telegraph poles, traffic lights, the backs of street signs, telephone booths and electricity boxes.

The stickers she finds have sayings like "Berlin stays German," "national freedom struggle," "unity gives strength," or "minarets forbidden" and are often in the national black, red and gold.

Freedom of expression has limits

Not everyone is happy about Schramm's actions. When she is spraying over insulting graffiti, she may look like a law-breaker at first glance. In addition, freedom of speech is enshrined in the German constitution and is held very highly in Germany. Schramm has been accused of hindering freedom of speech - but she disagrees.

“Freedom of expression has limits. It ends where hatred and contempt for mankind begins,” she explained.

Once in the affluent Berlin suburb of Charlottenburg, Schramm was standing on a bench with her shoes off at the Savignyplatz train station, removing a sticker. A well-dressed man started shouting at her, demanding to know what she was doing.

Schramm replied, "I am just doing my duty as a citizen,” got down and showed him the sticker. He was so touched that he hugged and thanked her.

Threats and intentions

She has a mixed relationship with the police, though.

"I've written to all state offices of criminal investigations all over Germany and I asked whether the police are under obligation to remove the things themselves or to arrange the removal and police it," she said. "And I received either differing answers or no answer at all."

In the past, the police have said to Schramm that the perpetrators "don’t know what they are writing." But that is just the kind of comment which infuriates her.

That neo-Nazi graffiti is intentional is reflected in the threats Schramm gets.

"They sprayed on the wall of a building, 'Schramm, we will get you,'" she recalled.

While these kinds of open threats unsettle Schramm, she says they also make her more determined than ever to rid the streets of hate.

The hate destroyer

Two Italian film-makers read an article in an Italian newspaper about Schramm's work and were so touched that they decided to make a film about her work, despite the language barrier. Fabrizio Mario Lussu and Vincenzo Caruso have persevered because they believe it's important to fight against the rising tide of nationalism, not just in Germany, but across Europe.

"Also in Italy we have a lot of problems with racism," said Caruso. He hopes that through the film he and Lussu can encourage people to be more active against hate in their daily lives.

Caruso said it shouldn't just be up to one person to take on the far-right propaganda machine. He said the German government should defend the rights of its citizens by ridding the streets of hate.

Through their website (see the link below), Caruso and Lussu hope to raise awareness about Schramm's mission and create an interactive community, encouraging people to upload their own photos of hate graffiti.

Since Caruso and Lussu uploaded a demo trailer of the film onto their Vimeo and Facebook pages in January, the video has been viewed almost 80,000 times by people all over the world.

Something Schramm said stuck with Caruso: "It's possible to clean a wall. But it's not possible to clean the dignity of the people this kind of graffiti hurts."

Author: Cinnamon Nippard

Editor: Kate Bowen