As of: January 29, 2024, 6:02 a.m
By: Boris Forstner
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The new German citizens had a lot of fun at the first naturalization ceremony in the district.
Also there were Mohammad Abuhajeb (back row, the one on the right with a white T-shirt) and Mohamed Khalaf (front row with his daughter in his arms).
© district office
A naturalization ceremony took place in the Weilheim-Schongau district for the first time.
We spoke to two former refugees who are happy about their German passport.
District – As a welcome gesture and symbolic act, the district office organized the celebration in the Hohenpeißenberg House of Associations.
Because naturalization marks an important step towards belonging, said District Administrator Andrea Jochner-Weiß.
“Integration is not an easy task and it is not a quick matter.
It is a long-term, multi-layered process aimed at sustainability,” said the district administrator.
Both sides are required in this process: the local majority and the immigrant minority.
“Everyone involved must actively participate.
Everyone has to make their contribution to the success of integration,” she said.
The German passport was given to citizens from other EU states and North and South America, people from Turkey and the former Yugoslavia, but also many war refugees - almost half of the 50 naturalized people come from Syria.
Naturalization ceremony in Weilheim-Schongau: Former refugees are happy about their German passport
Among them is Mohammad Abuhajeb.
The 32-year-old was a stateless Palestinian who was born in Syria's capital Damascus - "even my father was still a child when he came to Syria," says Abuhajeb.
In 2014, he fled the war first to Turkey, where he spent 18 months before coming to Germany via the Balkan route.
His father was already in Bavaria at the time, he had fled earlier, and the rest of the family arrived a month later.
After initially staying in Eberfing, Abuhajeb now lives in Schongau, in an apartment with his brother and his parents as neighbors.
“I have two sisters who live in Hamburg and two more who got married and moved to Jordan,” says the 32-year-old.
The early days in what was a foreign country to him were difficult, he admits, because he only had temporary protection status and the threat of deportation was always in the back of his mind.
But Abuhajeb stuck it out, completed an advanced language course in Weilheim with his brother and received not only a residence permit but also a work permit.
The example of his mother, who struggled with the language and was deported while his father was allowed to stay, shows that this is not a given.
Examples of successful integration
As a trained fitter who worked as a carpenter in Turkey, Abuhajeb was a sought-after worker: Together with his brother, he now works as a heating engineer at a company in Altenstadt.
The naturalization formalities were relatively easy: the acceptance came within a year of the application.
“It was significantly faster than with the residence permit,” says Abuhajeb.
He is currently having problems like many others have: He still lives with his brother, who is a year older than him, but he has a girlfriend - "I have to go out now and look for an apartment myself," says Abuhajeb.
The career of Mohamed Khalaf (28) is similar.
He was also a stateless Palestinian who lived in Syria and came to Germany in October 2015 - although not via a dangerous escape route, but conveniently by plane.
“For me it was about family reunification.
I got a visa from the embassy in Lebanon for this,” he says.
Two years earlier, his sister, who was eight years older than him, had fled across the Mediterranean with her husband and two children - her son had kidney disease that could not be treated in Syria.
That's why the family took the step and one of the father's kidneys was successfully transplanted into the child in Germany.
The sister's family lives in Weilheim, where Khalaf has also settled.
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Just one month after his arrival, he visited the newly established refugee class at the Weilheim vocational school and in 2017 began training as a construction mechanic at a company in Peißenberg.
Further training within the company followed, such as a welding course, which he completed in Munich.
Khalaf was in high school in Syria and had to drop out shortly before graduating from high school because of the war.
“I actually wanted to study law, but I really enjoy the job here,” says Khalaf.
At some point he became interested in the German passport, presented all the required certificates and finally achieved naturalization - something special for him: As a stateless person, he didn't have a passport in Syria, so it is the first certified identification document of his life.
By the way: Everything from the region is also available in our regular Schongau newsletter. And in our Weilheim-Penzberg newsletter.
Khalaf is now married, has two children aged two and a half years and four months - and, like many, has a housing problem: “We all live in one room.
I’ve been searching in vain for three years,” says Khalaf, frustrated.
Maybe it will work with the German passport.