BERLIN: Mohamed Al-Subeeh was a senior restorer at Syria’s best-known mosaic museum, but as war swept deeper into his province, destroying artefacts and threatening his and his family’s lives, he was forced to flee.
The 64-year-old from Idlib province never dreamt that he would ever work in a museum again, certainly not in Germany, to which he had fled in a 23-day journey that involved a rubber boat ride across the Mediterranean, endless bus and train rides and hours of trekking on foot.
But when he heard about a project at some of Berlin’s top museums that trains newcomers to become Arabic-language guides for fellow refugees, he leapt at the opportunity.
“I loved my work in Syria. Being a guide here today makes me feel like I’m getting a bit of my life back,” Subeeh, who used to work at Maaret Al-Numan museum, told AFP.
Subeeh, who arrived in Germany last August, now takes groups of Syrian, Iraqi and other Arabic-speaking refugees on tours through the Bode Museum, where artefacts include a large mosaic piece from Ravenna, Italy.
As part of a bid to integrate refugees into Germany, several museums run by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which administers the capital’s state museums, came up with the unique project.
Nineteen new arrivals were selected to participate in the program, which entailed taking a course about the artefacts or art works that they would be introducing to fellow refugees.
“We also learnt about how to capture their interest, so that they don’t get bored during the one-hour tour,” said another guide Kefah Ali Deeb, a Syrian opposition activist who says she was jailed four times by the regime before she fled.
Deeb, who now conducts tours at the Pergamon Museum, said she is grateful for the opportunity to “meet other Syrians and Iraqis and to tell them about our own heritage.”
Refugees as guides wow Berlin
Refugees as guides wow Berlin
