Special Events of The Selection Series

2. The German Reception (Celeste, Natalie e Elise/ Gray and Navy)

We were on time, as was crucial to the culture, and the girls were already a mess. It was like Celeste was sabotaging herself. Where Elise and Natalie were in respectable deep blues, Celeste’s dress was practically white. Put a veil on her, and this was a wedding. Not to mention how revealing it was, especially when she stood next to any of the German women. Most of them were wearing sleeves to their wrists despite the warm weather. 

Natalie had been put in charge of the flowers and missed the detail that lilies were traditionally used at funerals. All the flower arrangements had to be removed hastily.

Elise, though clearly more agitated than she usually was, appeared to be the image of calm. To our guests, she would look like the star.

In 2015, Samer Serawan and his wife Arij realized that their life in Damascus was no longer possible. The import-export food company Samer ran, with its own chocolate milk factory, was "stolen" by one of the many armed groups that arose during the Syrian war, which by then was already four years old.

The only thing the 41-year-old will say now about that time is: "In Syria it's terrible, there are a lot of groups and everyone fights."

The couple came to Germany by the usual route, which was terrifying enough. They traveled across Turkey, where Samer eventually found a boat that would take them to Greece. From there they found a way to Berlin along what became known as the "Balkan route."

Read more: Five years on: How Germany's refugee policy has fared

"I tried to forget, but I always get a question that makes me remember," he says with a rueful laugh. The worst part was paying traffickers to get them on a boat to Greece: "You have to do a deal with the devil. We used everything, we walked, we used the boat, we used the train, the bus, everything."

Five years later, he remembers all this while sitting outside Damascus Aroma, the restaurant he and Arij opened last year in Berlin. It's 3 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon and along a hot, noisy, traffic-choked street, but the outside tables are already all occupied. The food — stuffed peppers and vine leaves, grilled lamb and chicken, rice with raisins and various Middle Eastern spices — is what any Syrian family might cook at home.

continue reading

I like his definition of “integration.” It’s something the Danish should apply, indeed most of Europe but especially the Danes.