I am a man from syria fled war in his homeland. Sosh astonished from bosnia fled genocide in his homeland. Antonio scar made up from chile fled an occupational ban in his homeland. Judas care from germany fled the nazis. Nuna from nigeria flood violence in the family. Five people who have one thing in common they had to make fresh starts in strange countries. We all wanted to be german by all means there are she owns wanted to be german. Did the iranian girls the old when i did some of the me when did i say to get blue eyes and blond hair the only proposition trying to be trapped but. Nick of no knock came to hamburg in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine at the age of nineteen her german mother had left her when she was just two after that she grew up with her father and stepmother in nigeria she would rather not talk about why she left but her brother wrote a book in which he tells how the stepmother terrorized abused and starved the children. In nigeria she was forced to do the housework in hamburg she enjoys cooking nigerian specialities. It was a time. For a stranger here in the beginning you know coming here. Thinking half of my life that i was half white and. They call it half caste in the uk. Which is a name for people who are mixed. Who have said. Coming to germany i realize that that wasnt the case when somebody told me oh youre in they go oh im in the oh wow i didnt know that. I have ended up in be spartan in twenty sixteen having fled the war in syria his trek took him through Turkey Greece serbia croatia and austria before he finally reached germany in v spot and he shares a ten square meter room with five other men in a refugee hostel his wife and their two small sons are still in syria. I feel very ashamed because i am im in the sea of food with my friends. With with my ok and the people are still dying for the third die in school or to. Know without. You dont have all the all the people together you will feel you will decide to save yourself and your family its very difficult time for me i miss my boys my wife of a father. I come off mind was born and raised in this Palestinian Refugee camp in yarmuk near damascus he learned to play the piano at the age of five. He was still playing when islamists overran and laid waste to yarmuk in twenty fifteen. A lot of things happen where the most horrible things were sitting near the pyramid and thing going on here we have a sniper i know her power and i see their little game dying near the piano and these are the horrible things in my mind i think about how the human rights or the other threatened again we see reason we dont mean anything. By him cannot forget what he saw now he fears for his family who are still in syria. Its forgotten of all forty s. When the first five thousand bosnian refugees arrived in germany on special trains they received a warm welcome public willingness to help and make donations was running high from the wartime suffering was at least on the refugees faces weeks as was their gratitude for the fact that germany offered them refuge to watch nancy all phenomena. Such astonishing is one of those five thousand he and his parents arrived in heidelberg where an uncle lived in the summer of one thousand nine hundred two he was fourteen years old and new to words of german low tar meticulous the family applied for asylum and had to wait months to find out if they could stay. So. Theres all this uncertainty even if you make it somewhere else you could be deported to a country where youre not welcome at all and to which you do not want to return this is what those three months were awful for me my family they worked and. The stunning family were put up in heidelberg emmott school and socially deprived area with many ethnic minorities he would later say the place that made the most effort to integrate people was a gas station he wrote there in the parking lot we taught each other bad german and how to install car radios. As the dust on the found that we were not from germany did not play such a major role in emirates going to which was a cultural melting pot anyway at the same time there was always a kind of Competition Among the ethnic groups so it wasnt just a case of peacefully Holding Hands and going to school together. Usually the poles stuck with the poles and the turks with the turks. But there are also outstanding examples of people. Mixing it with your of love stories are common interests like football or sport in general how. The neck of bridge in heidelberg helped him to feel at home too it reminded him of the bridge in his home town shagrat except here it was safe. Judas care had to leave her homeland too. She was just turning ten when the National Socialist seized power in germany in one thousand nine hundred thirty three. She fled to switzerland with her older brother michael. D. For me it is this us family is everything especially for a child. I always felt safe in creek but less so during the war when the bombs found of our home was destroyed by bombs you know but our family was there for us me. Judith care had a sheltered upbringing in a comfortable part of berlin the carers were jewish but not especially devout. Alfred care was a famous theater critic and an opponent of the nazis one night in february one thousand thirty three under the cover of darkness the family abandoned their home in the leafy berlin suburb of to revive. Just in time to the secret police were on the verge of cancelling their travel papers the nazis confiscated everything the carers had to leave behind. From switzerland their flight took them to paris. It was a big adventure for a ten year old. I loved it i was very happy in paris it was a lovely thing myname with my motherland french cuisine you know you have never before had we even so well paris was wonderful and. Apparently i once said to my father. It was dark and our apartment was on a very high floor because the rent was low it when you live tyra who thats the league of him and wanted and from our little balcony you could look out over the paris. And apparently i said to my father is not great to be a refugee. This isnt healthy and fifteen to side that must have amused him of it because it must have been unbelievably hard for my parents that it owned loutish fear. Her father tried without success to sell his work as the money ran out the parents grew more desperate. Than i would to. My mother said oh yes i only found this out later. That she wanted to commit suicide in paris to. See what. It was and some less it from my father that someone found. Small again. And play for mine and he said she wanted to take the two of us with her my brother and me. One thought it would kill me to name men poured over me i was shocked of course. Shifted and i saw the date on the status of i had only just learned friend shifted what he still has a lot of hunch it would have been very annoying to have to diet just when i was learning to speak french ellicott i think function should clinton. Get a little. Slow in the one nine hundred seventy s. Berlin the city judith care once fled became a place of refuge for people fleeing persecution many of them came from chile this year to say. You know you. My number your son to my name is antonio scotmid i am a writer from chile. I left chile in one nine hundred seventy three because of a coup detat against the democratically elected president Salvador Allende that led to a military dictatorship in my country and that is that if when the house. Side and i have been living in a west berlin with my family i never for eight years. So i ducked out of what i invest will be by the from being here. Antonio was lucky through family connections he got a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange service. With this wouldnt be im into this i decided to leave the country of my own free will. I was not tortured a single time served and i just lost my job it always will which is very little compared to the suffering other people went through so for your. With the. Four here where todays concert goers wait for their star to perform was a place of torture and murder. After the putsch the military interned thousands of people in the soccer stadium people were indiscriminately arrested and tortured the stadium became a concentration camp under the new ruler augusta can share. One hundred people were confined to a single locker room and had to share two toilets. More than two thousand men and women were murdered more than one thousand are still missing today. Antonios car matter is safe but as a writer he lived off his language now he had to get by in a strange country whose language he did not speak. Yes you have it bad mia i was reunited with my family when i got to germany will see house and i saw at the time i had two sons of seven and five years of age six. But obviously to make a long story short i must say that to learn the language very quickly point and the conversations i had including with german journalists for example over the telephone rang out in my idea. That the people spoke very fast on the telephone the what if and when someone called me and offered me Something Like it or ask the question. I would pass the receiver to my son and my son went to answer for me if you mean. Like antonios comment his children sasha astonished which learned german quickly and heidelberg he attended a special school for immigrants the bosnian boys german and history teachers gave him extra attention. Given they were more than just teachers they were great people i thought they looked after us and not just work to rule. They were there for and they understood various aspects of our situation and them even. When he went to university he moved from the outskirts of heidelberg to the town center the only reason he was allowed to stay in germany was that he had a chance of going to college his parents implications for permanent residency were rejected and they emigrated to the us in a way he was lucky. And i know without a doubt that mine was a single fate and that it was an exception rather than a rule and i dont have dark skin and you cant necessarily see that im not a german as bad as that is it makes all things easier in german so im going to im going and. Need. Nuno who has dual german nigerian citizenship is sometimes reminded of this but she also enjoys newfound freedoms that had never been in the police where you know. Where you could see you want something on you get is immediately like have access to education free. And having just having your own space your own your own room you own your own time we could just shut the door and see this is my time now so i think having that kind of. Definitely. Helped me grow and gain an identity find out who i really am. Right from the start she soaked up own things german she learned the language went to school and university but her heart was in Something Else. I started like recording myself or in my day and then i made it follow it and then we decided to explore more you know hamburg the underground sessions that we used to do in different parts just doing music for love not you know not for the money not for competition just. Doing it and he introduced me to a different side to making music keyboard hip hop into my life. Though i already think i was hip well before boy he kind of like just you know he educated me a lot. On here and i on the other hand being an african introduced. The african side to him and then being in germany. Is that you know it was sick and amazing mix. Her mixture of dubs soul reggae and afro beat went down well and in two thousand and five nikki released her first album four more followed along with tours of europe and the us her songs are about god and family but also about violence environmental destruction and social injustices in nigeria. Have never been. I hope the first is that means it that i do. Is able to you know trying things and the physical. And peoples lives. That touch them. Move them motivate them in power in and in it in a spiritual week. And english her Mother Tongue. It is a language in which she feels and thinks there was a time when she would rather have forgotten about her african roots and today her African Heritage is part of her. His native language was not all that the writer on tonio scar made to last when he fled chile he lost his subject matter to said you know the though did you sense that it was pointless to continue talking in the same terms and language addressing the same subculture and subconscious as i did when i communicated with much elaine readers feel like. Its my work had many references to chile and soccer players to movie stars to the streets and districts of the city to what i shared in common with other chileans the. Earth because i love but now i was experiencing Something Else which could be very big. The printers of the experience of exile idiocy of the c. D. U. It was a turning point my friend exile was to become an tony has come at his most important literary thing it was to play a role in many of his works. You can run away like this your monopoly i wrote a novel called no passanante like that nothing happens. That is the story of an exiled boy i give you brought here by its parents or i dont recall exactly about fourteen years old with no possible is a novel strictly about exile a tale of exile he says from the point of view of youth insearch. The young child is torn. Hes in love with a german girl but his chilean parents want him to take part in solidarity events for chilean dissidents. Yet. A uniquely exile. Tells of his life here of his exiled parents. His friends and school. Of his first love and. This is pretty much how he falls in love with a girl who sells records at a music store and it him at the end of their first dates theres the pieces they enjoyed the look of the magazines they read and the music they listen to. I think that one how to learn german by listening to the lyrics of songs while walking down the street wearing headphones and singing along to learn the song and it would like i did. Ok we always try to do things with the whole family. For example. Gabriele place piano. Blues and jazz. And he is very sad. For example and every day situation. House we were all very sad when School Started again after Vacation Time but everybody. So i decided to write a blues song for gabriella governors who so far and. What i mean my. Day is today. Is the first day. The experiences antonios car meant to describes in no possum nada are similar to those of his sons they grew up in between mora. Chico something that would not be i mean that if your children learn languages very quickly and quickly established relations with their peers in. This way that you know just in our case we had to leave our country and it was very interesting to see how children adapt as to the different rules of play but at the knee and he said few lives first they had allegiances to their parents but he made it who could not live in their homeland he said yeah get them for you yes but here the little media were not a second play they had allegiances to themselves he said. That their future visitors asked what are their prospects for us to their peers a sense of their music on the streets and the excitement of a new language and the human they had to reconcile two different worlds to tackle something in the world outside which called out to them saying live with me if we dont get it and the world of their parents which called out think of your country where remember and think of the time when we can return your valuables. Symbolised the war and i know we were always sure that we would return to chile but we just hoped and waited for it to be possible sometimes secretly. In one thousand nine hundred eighty nine the military dictatorship finally came to an end in chile antonio returned to some to go with his second wife a german their two older sons stayed on in berlin for them chile was no longer home. I have also yearns for his homeland syria he misses his piano to the i. R. S. Islam ists for whom music is sacrilege earned it here in germany a music store allows him to play. By himself father was an instrument maker and had his own store back in syria for much of his life he dreamed of taking over the store from his father. Yes when i am still in syria its my diary when i have my home i have. Both the north and the home no. Peace and sit with my family. We make everything in this film and i teach the children all the ground the point in mindful. They have. Its and i home for new music as their. People come to hear i have his music and his stories today its too close up for me to play this game. With a beauty for a friend we will play a song. From germany make some things happen maybe we can change. This is crazy were going to. Shall believe parts of the cup be brought out of the mind of the lawyer that it. Is our belief. But not that. We have that big. Get my hands father wanted him to become a concert pianist but a shrapnel wound in his left hand dashed those hopes now he plays to bring attention to the suffering in syria. In the biggest day in the. World the. Summer before i knew or the musician is somewhere to play in the stairway the. Only. Just in like are three five four booths. Its a lot of things for me and this is why i dont just mind when would i go and do i have a lot of things in my. Or in my. Head it exists. On cd on the phone but. When i am off man had been in germany without his family for a year this arab supermarket was the closest he came to home. Many of his relatives and friends died in their attempts to flee syria as the battles raged the war has triggered europes biggest refugee crisis since the second world war. After his family had to close down its music store i have ahmad sold falafel in syria sometimes he plays concerts here but he doesnt have a steady job. In august twenty sixth seen his wife to honey and two children finally got permission to join him in germany and they moved into an apartment in the spawn. But his parents were still in yarmuk or water and food were running out and the war continued. Obviously for up. Its for me the music physiotherapy when i want to play concert ive played in the bathroom the music its still in my blood i need to get it out you know these things its not about concert but ive been a i like to play piano in my house with my boys and it was nice as i would make a thread of it because i still would not exist when i say youngster this smoke the chance when the people tell me you want a great pianist think you. But could it be in the us that make it a lot of things. You know. At least he has his own piano again now. But he would still rather go back to syria with his family nobody knows if that will ever be possible even when the war is over it will take decades to rebuild the country and clear the land mines but he will still be homesick. In heidelberg the writer sasha astonishes made his new language his living. That is up to us yet to get out the entire flight the asian have been sucking sweets man every time he opened