Friedland

A group of Syrian refugees arrive at Hanover Airport, exhausted but happy and full of hope after years on the run and living in camps in Lebanon. They are bussed to the initial reception camp at Friedland.

We follow three of these families during their stay at Friedland. They talk about their flight and the reasons for it, and about dramatic losses and shattered homelands. They learn the basics of the German language and take familiarization courses. They are often amazed by their new surroundings, and especially by Germany’s constitution, the Basic Law, which holds that: “The dignity of man is inviolable.” That was simply unimaginable in their homeland. Almost all fear for friends and relatives they have left behind in Lebanon or Syria.

In addition to the Syrian families, we also follow the lives of asylum seekers from Eritrea, Afghanistan and Pakistan as they live in the hope that they’ll be given the right to stay in the Friedland camp. They have often braved extreme danger, crossing the Mediterranean with traffickers or fording raging rivers in inflatable boats. Many have seen friends drown, but they are here because they faced even greater threats at home. They tell of their dramatic experiences and their fear and uncertainty: they could still be sent back home or to the first country in Europe where they were officially registered and where they had often been imprisoned and mistreated. Bulgaria, Greece and Malta are particularly notorious. A Palestinian from Syria breaks into tears at the memory of what happened to him in Malta. A young Afghan woman tells us she would be stoned to death in her home country because she has left the old man she was forced to marry as a child.

Daily life in the Friedland camp today forms the film’s unifying theme. The language courses and advice, the trips to nearby Göttingen, the children's home and school, and the playgrounds and sports fields where they all meet. Muslims live in a confined space with Jewish and Christian families, and that nurtures friendships and love stories. Wafaa from Damascus says it’s almost like it was back home before they all went mad there, when everyone lived peacefully side-by-side and no one bothered whether their neighbor was a Muslim or a Christian ...

We also link today's stories with stories from the past. Germans who were early inmates of the camp in Friedland talk about their memories: Annelie Keil, for example, ended up in Friedland as a child after a dramatic escape from Poland in 1947. They understand how important the camp is as a safe respite from flight because they experienced it themselves. The film gives an inside view of a place where “Fortress Europe” has still not completely slammed its gates. And it also tells of a time when Germans were both desperate refugees and at the same time the vanquished in a devastating war they had themselves started.

A documentary by Frauke Sandig. 85 minutes. A coproduction of Deutsche Welle and NDR.