peter
“I didn’t want to leave my country but my city was already surrounded, under constant bombing and gunshots. I will never forget that call… It was my mother. Her voice was just so sad. She said; ‘Ahmed, don’t come home today. The police were here looking for you if you come home they will arrest you again’. I’d been arrested before… I’d been tortured for weeks and I’d been beaten up many times. I had to leave without going home to pack any of my belongings or to hug my mother… I had this thought in my head that I would go to Egypt for a few weeks, maybe two months and I would return when things got a bit better. Well, things didn’t get any better. My family went through a lot to follow me to Egypt. They had to leave everything behind… We were together, living in Egypt for a few months but there was a political change and the new president made a deal with the Syrian regime to make it extremely hard for Syrians to stay. I asked the Embassy for my passport and they told me; either I go back to Syria to do my military service or I will never see my passport again. Then I had to look for a way out of the country without my passport. It wasn’t actually that easy to find a smuggler but I did. That’s a story in itself. From Egypt to Italy it took ten terrible days, we came in an old fishing boat with a drunk and greedy captain. It was so overcrowded that you could only sit. There was nowhere to lay down. I couldn’t take enough food and water with me and there were times when I was sure I was going to die. We got caught in a storm and the captain ordered everyone to throw all the belongings out of the boat and he kept moving everyone from one side to the other to balance the boat. The waves were splashing over the sides and I was prepared to die. All I could think of was that I hope I will able to meet the people I lost in my life… But then out of nowhere, there was a huge military ship beside us. We got rescued and my long journey ended in Germany. When I arrived in Germany I applied for asylum… I’m in Dublin because I enrolled in an English teaching course, I want to be a teacher back in Germany. At the class, I met a beautiful girl and we are together for 2 months now. She is planning to come and live with me in Germany. I still have nightmares, but for the first time in a very long time I feel safe now…”
This interview was taken as part of EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum’s Story Collecting Weekend. Find out more https://epicchq.com/