?The Wall Fell on Our Heads?
Excerpt from an interview with Adrienne Woltersdorf and Nevim ?il, Nov. 08, 2004, taz
>> Borders
>> Percepetion
>> change
No one seemed interested before Nevim ?il came along. The 32-year-old Ph.D. student at the Free University was the first to study how Turkish migrants experienced the fall of the Wall and German reunification. Her conclusion: the grandchildren, sons, and daughters of Turkish guest workers are the big losers of the Wende. That’s how they see themselves, anyhow. ?il, a former punk in the squatter scene, moved from Bremen to Berlin in 1993, where she first studied religion.
taz: Ms. ?il. So, was the evening of November 9, 1989 unforgettable?
Nevim ?il: I was in Bremen, where I lived at the time, and watching a film on TV. Suddenly the broadcast was interrupted with pictures of people climbing over the Wall. Oh, God, I thought, Germany’s getting bigger. That was my first reaction.
…
How did the fall of the Wall influence you in the years before you went to Berlin?
In Bremen of course we didn’t have to stand in lines at the store like they did in Berlin. At first, the fall of the Wall didn’t affect my everyday life. In 1990 came the reunification, and in 1991 the asylum paragraph was eliminated from the law governing foreigners. Then came the arson attacks in Rostock, Hoyerswerda, M?lln, and Solingen. Starting on November 9th, German society began to change.
…
Your doctoral thesis is about how Turkish migrants experienced the fall of the Wall. Is this the other German story?
I was astonished that none of the events commemorating the fall of the Wall addressed the migrant perspective. Yet it was my impression that something essential had changed for migrants. So I carried out detailed interviews with Turkish men and women in Berlin to see if I was right.
The complete interview can be found here (in German): http://www.taz.de/index.php?id=archivseite&dig=2004/11/08/a0246
