This is the fourth dispatch from a project following a mother and her four children who fled Syria in 2015 and are now rebuilding their lives spread across four European cities. Read more about the project here.
On Maisam and Marvin’s first official date in June 2016, they were so at ease with each other that they fell asleep together on the riverbank in Heidelberg, Germany; neither of them woke as thieves robbed them in the dark.
Maisam, then 20, and Marvin, 21, had watched the sunset at the Neckarwiese, a riverfront park with a view of the picturesque city and its ruined castle, talking into the night. For Maisam, a Syrian who had arrived in Germany only nine months prior, and Marvin, a German from nearby Hoffenheim, English was their common language. (Out of concern for her family’s security in a new country and the safety of her relatives in Syria, Maisam asked to use only first names.) [full story]