East German refugee worker: "I always felt a stranger to myself"

Icon: enlarge

Shoes in a refugee home in Wünsdorf: "I'm not sad if someone doesn't say thank you"

Photo: 

Ralf Hirschberger / picture alliance / dpa

SPIEGEL:

Ms. Lietz, you work as a volunteer in the refugee home in Wandlitz, where you look after a woman from Somalia.

Do you see parallels between yourself and this woman?

To person

Icon: enlarge Photo: Fotoatelier Andrea Haupt

Kerstin Lietz

was born in Wermsdorf (Saxony) in 1969 and grew up in Oranienburg near Berlin.

She worked as a hairdresser in the GDR.

In 2001 she moved to West Germany with her husband.

Because she always felt a stranger there, she returned to East Germany 15 years later.

Today she lives in the community of Wandlitz in Brandenburg and is involved in refugee aid there.

Lietz:

Yes, definitely.

This Somali woman came to Germany all alone in 2015 and she still feels a stranger here.

Everything is different: the way we live together, the bureaucracy, the way people look.

Because of her dark skin color alone, she is stared at on the street and perceived as a stranger.

I myself grew up in the GDR and moved to the West twelve years after the fall of the Wall.

I know the feeling of being a stranger, different from the others.

Nobody stared at me for how I looked, but everyone knew I was from the east.

SPIEGEL:

Can you really compare fleeing a crisis area with going to another federal state?

Lietz:

Of course that's something completely different.

But on the emotional level there are things that we share.

The feeling of being a stranger or missing one's family who is not in the same place.

With some of the feelings of the refugees, I can perhaps better imagine what it is like, even if the experience itself is of course not the same.

Read more with Spiegel Plus

More perspectives, more understanding.

Your advantages with SPIEGEL +

• Icon: Check

  SPIEGEL as a magazine

  as an app, e-paper and on the e-reader

• Icon: Check

  All articles on SPIEGEL.de

  Exclusive texts for SPIEGEL + readers

• Icon: Check

  Try one month for free

  Cancel anytime online

  A price

  only € 19.99 per month

One month for € 0.00

Try now for 0.00 € Buy nowArrow to the right

Already have a digital subscription? Register here

Restore iTunes subscription

SPIEGEL + is processed via your iTunes account and paid for with a purchase confirmation.

24 hours before it expires, the subscription is automatically renewed by one month at the current price of € 19.99.

You can cancel the subscription at any time in the settings of your iTunes account.

In order to use SPIEGEL + outside of this app, you must link the subscription to a SPIEGEL ID account immediately after purchase.

With the purchase you accept our general terms and conditions and privacy policy.