My parents wanted me to flee to Germany like my brother, but I didn't want to leave my friends. What changed my mind was a situation where a good childhood friend was shot next to me during an ID check on our school bus. I experienced many traumatizing situations at that time – rocket attacks on my school, living right between the front lines, and strict authoritarian school discipline. It felt like I had to choose between staying and dying or leaving and living.

When I was 15, my journey to Germany began. Initially through Lebanon to Turkey. My life felt like a nightmare. A smuggler demanded 13,000 euros to bring me with a larger group across the Turkish-Bulgarian border. These attempts failed repeatedly, and we were forced back to Turkey by Bulgaria. We were robbed, threatened, beaten, chased by dogs, and shot at by police.

Through many arduous and dangerous detours, I finally found a smuggler who took me and others across the Greek-Bulgarian border. Again, we were intercepted by the police and this time taken to prison. I can't say exactly how long I was there, maybe a month. A month where we were beaten every day. When I was on the verge of losing hope and the will to live, my brother came. I just cried, ran to him, and begged him to get me out. He helped me get a court hearing with the help of a translator. That's how I ended up in an asylum center. From there, I fled a short time later because I didn't want to stay in Bulgaria; I wanted to be with my brother in Germany. With further contacts to smugglers, I first arrived in Romania by inflatable boat.

There, we stayed in a house with many people for a few days until one day there was a knock on the door, and I saw a woman and two police officers through the peephole. It was clear that I absolutely couldn't get caught here. I jumped out of the window, managed to escape, and called the smuggler to pick me up. Then everything happened quickly. Curled up in the seats of a car, I reached Austria. My legs were numb upon arrival, and I could barely walk. From there, I continued to Nuremberg in Germany, to a friend of my father's, until my brother arrived.

After three days in Germany, I filed for asylum and was sent to Cadolzburg. With 50 other young people, we slept on mattresses on the floor of a church. We had no occupation there, were shouted at; the evening security treated us poorly and only spoke German to us, which we couldn't understand at that time. During that time, I was assigned a guardian, with whom I was very dissatisfied. We often argued. I was sent to Upper Franconia/Herscheid in a group home. After some time, my asylum application was approved, and I received my ID and residency status. I then promptly applied for my parents' family reunification.

After a quarrel with a supervisor who wanted to take away my passport and ID, I almost completely destroyed my room, after which my guardian called and asked me to leave the group home. My guardian tried to make me understand that I was just a foreigner and foreigners make mistakes – they, the Germans, always have the right. But even this bad experience didn't make me give up. I found a new guardian and moved to a new group home. After further complications, I found an apartment for my parents, who moved to Germany in 2016. We then moved into this apartment together: my parents, my sister, my younger brother, and I.

At this point, I began to plan my life anew and attended language courses. At that time, I had a girlfriend in Bamberg, whose mother was a German teacher and took care of me with understanding and love. In Bamberg, I attended a business school for 1.5 years and worked part-time as a pizza courier. I often experienced racist situations during police checks. Once, I had to do 15 hours of community service because I rode my bicycle without pedaling. Finally, after another check and false accusations, I was expelled from school. I couldn't endure the situation there anymore, and after finding a place through a voluntary social year (FSJ), I moved to a hostel in Berlin. The FSJ position helped me find a sublet apartment. In the first year, I lived in 9 different apartments until I got a part-time job at a friend's marketing firm. There, I met my current roommate, and we've been living together for 4.5 years. In 2020, I started my training as a social pedagogical assistant and am currently in the third semester of a teaching training program. I finally got an appointment for trauma therapy scheduled for the end of October 2023. I now have little to no contact with most of my friends and a very large family. My former friends see me as a traitor due to the escape. In Berlin, I feel very at home due to its cultural diversity and experience hardly any racism compared to Bamberg. Learning the German language further is important to me, and radio and audio dramas help me a lot. I feel very comfortable and safe here, thanks to my circle of friends, and I actually miss nothing here. I feel at home and consider myself part of society. Being able to live life as you want, doing whatever you want, means happiness to me. I have found that here. Peace makes the world a better place for me, as I personally experienced the war in my homeland, the dangers of fleeing, and displacement.