Nazan Rashidi, government director of human rights group the Syria Marketing campaign, in Berlin, Wednesday.
Karolin Klüppel for NPR
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Karolin Klüppel for NPR
BERLIN — The employees of two on the packed hole-in-the-wall Syrian restaurant Yarok in Berlin are swamped making hummus and falafel for a lunch crowd, however information of the downfall of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has them each smiling.
Buyer Razan Rashidi orders her tea with a celebratory phrase in Arabic, and the lads manning the counter beam, telling her that on this present day of liberation, tea for a fellow Syrian is free.
“It’s a day for celebration,” says Rashidi, who works as the chief director of the Syria Marketing campaign, a human rights group based mostly in Berlin.
Like lots of the tens of hundreds of Syrians who’ve settled in Berlin since Syria’s civil struggle started greater than a decade in the past, Rashidi was out late the night time earlier than, celebrating within the streets. “For me it was an amazing feeling just to be able to hug complete strangers and tell them, ‘Congratulations, Syria is ours and it does not belong to the Assad family!'”
For Rashidi, the liberation is private. Up till this week, she undertook her human rights work as Laila Kiki, a pseudonym to guard herself from Syrian safety officers. However right this moment, the regime that routinely interrogated and harassed her earlier than she fled Syria, isn’t any extra, and she or he is utilizing her actual identify once more for the primary time in 17 years. She’s lastly free to be herself, a sense she thinks many Syrians are sharing this week.
Nazan Rashidi holds a trinket that was made by her now husband greater than 10 years in the past in a detention heart.
Karolin Klüppel for NPR
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“I want to go home,” she says, nearly in tears as she thinks about returning to see household again in Syria. “I want to go visit for now, for sure, because it will take time to rearrange my life and my kids and all of that. But for sure, that’s my dream.”
The rebels’ swift seizure of energy in Damascus over the weekend introduced a sudden finish to greater than 50 years of rule by the Assad household. Assad’s reign, and the brutal civil struggle that started in 2011, despatched greater than 6 million individuals to hunt refuge in different international locations, in one of many world’s largest displacement crises, in accordance with United Nations figures. Official German statistics depend greater than 970,000 of them residing in Germany, the place politicians are making their presence a scorching political debate forward of elections in February. Now, with change afoot in Syria, lots of the exiles are contemplating visiting or shifting again for good, though others really feel settled of their new dwelling in Europe.
Samer Hafez in his restaurant Aleppo Supper Membership in Berlin.
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At a Syrian restaurant in Berlin known as Aleppo Supper Membership, proprietor Samer Hafez says he hasn’t slept since he heard the information that the Assad regime was completed. His eyes purple and drained, however he is smiling, too. “Many Syrians I know haven’t yet really processed what’s just happened,” he says. “Even the idea of returning home to see family seems unreal. It’s like I’m in a dream.”
Ten years in the past, Hafez was on a crowded boat within the Mediterranean Sea, fleeing his dwelling nation. He ended up in Berlin, a refugee, talking no German, with no job and with barely any cash in his pocket. “When I arrived to Germany, I had a to-do list,” Hafez remembers. “Year by year, I crossed off everything I needed to do to settle here and make this place my home: I started learning German and after three months, I had my first job. Then I met the woman who is now my wife. We had children. Then I opened my first restaurant. Then the second. And now the third. I just got my German passport, and when I had it in my hands, it was the first time I truly felt safe.”
Aleppo Supper Membership now has three places in Berlin and serves what some name one of the best hummus on the town. Since making it to Germany, Hafez has been in a position to carry his mom and siblings over, too. His sister simply graduated with a mechanical engineering diploma and one other sister is finding out to develop into a physician in Munich. Like many Syrians who arrived a decade in the past, Hafez’s life is right here.
The entrance of restaurant Aleppo Supper Membership in Berlin. Nearly 1,000,000 Syrians live in Germany, in accordance with official statistics.
Karolin Klüppel for NPR
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German authorities have suspended approval of Syrian asylum claims for now, as have a number of different international locations. However some German politicians have gone additional: calling on the Syrians already settled within the nation to depart.
This week on nationwide tv, Jens Spahn, a politician from the center-right Christian Democratic Union celebration, which is on monitor to win probably the most votes within the coming German election, made a public provide to Syrians. “The German government could charter flights for Syrians wishing to leave and give them a thousand euros for starter money,” Spahn mentioned on the NTV community. “I’m thinking of all the young Syrian men here in Germany who undoubtedly wish to give their homeland a future and who want to help us make it possible for them to return to Syria voluntarily.”
Hafez finds this an odd notion.
“Home for me is here in Germany,” he says. “Sure I’m Syrian, but I’m also now a German. Every time I’m on vacation, I miss Berlin. I can’t stay away more than a couple of weeks. I’ve built a business and a life here. My family is here. Germany is my home. At least for now.”
Esme Nicholson contributed to this report.
