DRESDEN, Germany -- Ahmed, a 36-year-old Moroccan, hoped to find a better life in Europe's economic powerhouse, Germany. But these days in Dresden, he said, he is afraid to walk the streets.
This urban phoenix rebuilt from ashes after World War II is the center of a movement against immigrants -- Muslims in particular -- that has shocked much of the rest of Germany even as anti-immigration marches have spread to 10 cities nationwide. Downtown Dresden, Ahmed and other immigrants here say, has become a no-go zone for them on Monday nights, when the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West -- or Pegida, in German -- stages its weekly rallies.
Since the movement was founded here in October, refugee advocates say the number of aggressive acts against foreigners has sharply increased.
After one Pegida rally just before Christmas, for instance, demonstrators chased a group of young refugees, leaving a 15-year-old girl battered and bruised.
"When I go out, I put on a hat and wear it low over my face," said Ahmed, a resident in a shelter for asylum seekers who was too frightened to give his last name. "I don't want them to see I'm not from here."
Devastated in a firestorm caused by Allied bombing in 1945, Dresden is a symbol of perseverance, emerging in the years after German reunification as a beacon for tourists drawn to its museums and beautifully reconstructed city center. But especially after the attacks in France staged by Islamist extremists this month, this city also now stands as a bellwether of the friction between local communities and the fastest growing religion in Europe: Islam.
Last year, Pegida was born amid a Europe-wide surge of asylum seekers, many of them arriving from war-torn Muslim countries. Germany received 200,000 new asylum applications in 2014 -- a 60 percent jump from a year earlier.
Anti-immigrant nationalists have been soaring in polls from Britain to Hungary, France to Greece. But until the rise of Pegida, such voices had been largely drowned out in Germany -- Western Europe's most populous nation and a place where memories still run deep about what happened the last time the far right held sway in Europe.
As the movement has grown, tens of thousands of Germans also have risen up to condemn Pegida, taking to the streets in counter demonstrations that have often been larger that the anti-Islamic, anti-immigrant rallies they are opposing.
Some here are worried not only about the new asylum seekers, but also about the growing numbers of other migrants entering Europe's largest and strongest economy. Equally vexing to many is the lack of assimilation among a significant number of Muslim immigrants, some of whom came to Germany decades ago. Last September, for example, Germans were angered after a stunt in the city of Wuppertal in which 11 devout Muslims wearing the words "Sharia Police" on bright orange vests approached Turkish nightclubs and cafes and warned young partygoers that they were violating Islamic law by drinking.
Such fears have surfaced as security concerns are mounting in Germany and across Europe over the threat of homegrown terrorism. Hundreds of radicalized young Germans have left to fight with extremists in Syria and Iraq.
"How is it possible that parallel societies are forming in Germany?" Pegida spokesman Kathrin Oertel said on German TV recently. "That Islamic judges have the right to administer justice, and that Islamic schools are inciting hatred against German citizens?"
Senior German politicians -- led by Chancellor Angela Merkel -- have blasted Pegida supporters as intolerant extremists. "Every exclusion of Muslims in Germany, every general suspicion is out of the question," Merkel said in the days after the Paris attacks. "We will not let ourselves be divided."
However, Thomas Strobl, an influential parliamentarian from the center right, called last week for Germany to quickly deport refugees who are without legitimate asylum claims.
"If some countries carry out almost no deportations anymore, this verges on a surrender of the rule of law," he told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
Yet the Pegida movement is also facing serious setbacks. In recent days, it has been plagued by infighting as its leader, Lutz Bachmann -- a former sausage seller and convicted burglar -- was forced to step down. He resigned after leaks from his Facebook account showed he had referred to asylum seekers as "scumbags" and "animals."
Punctuating the leak was a photo of him dressed as Adolf Hitler -- an image that, despite Pegida's claims that the photo was meant only as satire, sparked widespread condemnations.
In Dresden, local authorities say the movement gained steam after they floated a proposal to add 12 new shelters for asylum seekers.
German authorities have been overwhelmed by the surge, and have shuttled new arrivals to cities across the nation, including Dresden, to await processing.
Yet the new faces particularly stand out in Dresden, where less than 10 percent of the population is non-German.
Information for this article was contributed by Stephanie Kirchner.
A Section on 01/25/2015