The German Emigration Center focuses on the fate of German migrants, but also tells the stories of refugees who found a new home in Germany. The most recent addition portrays a Syrian family.
Image: Sammlung Deutsches Auswandererhaus
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A Syrian family's escape to Germany
An exhibition at the German Emigration Center tells the story of a Syrian family's escape to Germany. Photos and mementos give an impression of the Koto family's long trek to Europe.
Image: Sammlung Deutsches Auswandererhaus
Happy in Aleppo
The Kotos in 2006: Khalil, his wife Hamida and the children Mannan, Dolovan, Ayaz and Nervana. Back then, there was no civil war, no destruction, no hardship - and the family never thought they would one day have to flee Syria.
Image: Sammlung Deutsches Auswandererhaus
Determined to leave
At the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011, Khalil Koto headed a branch of the country's Energy Ministry in his hometown Afrin in northwestern Syria. The electrical engineer soon lost his job, there was a shortage of water and food, and in April 2014, the situation was so dire that the family decided to flee to Turkey, where Khalil's mother lived.
Image: Sammlung Deutsches Auswandererhaus
Step by step
Khalil couldn't find work in Turkey, so in July 2014, the family agreed to move on to Germany. The fact that Khalil's brother already lived in Europe helped the family make the decision. The spoon, above, is a reminder of the six months the Kotos spent in Bulgarian refugee camps.
Image: Sammlung Deutsches Auswandererhaus
Welcome to Germany
Finally in Germany, the family was granted asylum in the northern city of Bremen. A woman there gave Khalil this pair of jeans, the refugee's first piece of clothing in Germany. That same year, the family was eventually housed in the port city of Bremerhaven, about 50 kilometers north of Bremen.
Image: Sammlung Deutsches Auswandererhaus
Uncertain future
Today, the children go to a German school, while Khalil and his wife Hamida take German lessons. The electrical engineer hopes he'll find a job soon. The family enjoys remembering life in Syria. Ayaz, the youngest, still has his Syrian pre-school ID from Aleppo.
Image: Sammlung Deutsches Auswandererhaus
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The German Emigration Center museum has for years had a special wing dedicated to the life stories of 15 different groups of migrants to Germany. Now, a new story has been added - that of the Kotos, a Kurdish family of six from Syria.
The exhibition shows mementos as well as interviews with the refugees, who speak about their escape, the reasons they fled their native countries and their hopes for the future. The emigration museum shines a light on people's very personal and political reasons for fleeing to Germany.
It was time to add a current refugee story, says the museum's director Simone Eick. "For the first time, we're telling a contemporary story - and we don't know the outcome yet." The museum could hardly be more up-to-date.
Moving tales of new beginnings
Since opening in 2005, the award-winning German Emigration Center museum has let visitors experience the process of migration over the centuries, often with interactive exhibits: farewells and departures, the journey and arrival in a new, unknown world.
The museum traces the lives of migrants to Germany since the 17th century, focusing on exodus and passage, hopes and broken dreams, and the search for happiness and a secure future in freedom and peace.
The exhibition looks at the life of a migrant laborer in the 1970s, for instance, a time when Turks, Greeks and Italians fleeing unemployment and bleak prospects in their own countries were called "guest workers" in Germany.
The most recent addition to the exhibition, the Syrian family's refugee story, is unlikely to be the last that focuses on the history of Germany as a country of immigration.