Aeham Ahmad — pianist from Syria
He survived the “Islamic State” (IS), hunger, as well as the bombs of the Syrian civil war. Despite his luck, Aeham Ahmad’s piano concerts still resonate with melancholy and despair: He keeps wondering why he of all people survived — while so many others didn’t.
He became famous as “the pianist amid the rubble,” as he moved his piano through the bombed streets of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus. It was the stronghold of snipers, and he knew that grenades could explode anywhere and anytime. Yet he played and sang to offer people hope. Videos of him doing so went viral on YouTube.
When IS militants set his piano aflame, he feared for the safety of his family and fled. He survived a treacherous boat-crossing of the Mediterranean Sea, and arrived in Germany in 2015.
How has he settled in Germany and dealt with his role in the spotlight, while knowing that his family and friends still fear for their lives in Syria? His responses are part of DW’s online feature and television documentary.
Saša Stanišić — author from Bosnia
Along with Ahmad’s story, the DW feature also explores how Saša Stanišić left his home country, fleeing the Bosnian War in 1992.
When he arrived in Germany, aged 14, he only knew two words in German: “Lothar Matthäus” — the German football champion.
Stanišić has meanwhile become a renowned author who writes in German. He even won the Leipzig Book Fair Prize for his book “Vor dem Fest” (Before the Feast).
When the Bosnian War ended, his parents had to leave Germany. His mother and father emigrated to Florida, but Stanišić was allowed to stay in Germany as a student.
Antonio Skarmeta — author from Chile
Parents separated from their children after fleeing: this fate was also experienced by author Antonio Skarmeta.
After Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’etat in Chile in 1973, supporters of the democratically elected President Salvador Allende were persecuted, tortured and killed. Antonio Skarmeta was no longer allowed to work as an author in his country. He fled Chile and lived in exile in West Germany.
As an author, he had to completely change his style: References to Chilean locations and wordplays with the names of South American football players no longer worked. His life in exile became one of his main literary themes.
In his bestseller “Nixpassiert” (Nothing Happened), he depicts his sons’ experiences. They were torn between two cultures — from their old world, their parents’ homeland, and the new one, which had so much to offer yet further disconnected them from their roots.
In 1989, after the end of Pinochet’s military dictatorship, Skarmeta returned to Chile. His sons, however, stayed in Berlin. Germany had become their new homeland.
For more read the full of article at The Dw
