Faces and Stories: What Has Become of the Refugees at Steinmühle

2015 – the large wave of refugees reached Germany. Steinmühle, too, made it its mission to provide active assistance and organized a residential group for unaccompanied minor refugees, designed to help these young people find their footing in Germany as quickly as possible and take their first steps toward successful integration. Not least because of this experience, the exhibition “Faces and Stories” by the bsj Marburg immediately piqued the interest of the Steinmühle’s leadership.

The exhibition traces the journey of Tarek, Ali, and Muhi Eddin, who arrived in Marburg in 2015 and, several years later, reflect on their experiences over the past few years. Sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes pensive, but always optimistic, they talk about their experiences and adventures.

Together with educators from bsj Marburg, the three young Syrians also compiled diaries of their flight, featuring cell phone photos of their families, their hometowns—Damascus, Idlib, Al-Hasaka—and of individual stops along their journey of flight to the Marburg-Biedenkopf district. The young people developed the concept for illustrating their stories during a weekend workshop together with a graphic designer. There, they counted the days of their journey and illustrated each stage with photos, their own drawings, and handwritten notes in Arabic and German

What has become of Tarek, Ali, and Muhi Eddin since 2015? Have the three of them found a new home in the Marburg-Biedenkopf district? Which of their wishes have come true, and which have not?

The three young men come to very different conclusions on this matter, but they all emphasize that they feel they have found their place, even if things haven’t turned out exactly as they had hoped five years ago.

The exhibition was on display for two weeks on the upper floor of the Steinmühle high school building and drew a great deal of interest from the students.

(Bernd Hülsbeck)