Interview with Children on the Frontline's Hala and Helen

9 May 2016

 

Hala, could you explain your relationship with Marcel?

Hala: Marcel is a really really important person. He is as my son, I know he seems tall as my brother, but I see him as my son.

In the film you emerge as an incredibly, understandably, sad person, and you feel watching the film that your soul is still in Syria, how are you now?

Hala: I'm feeling a lot better now, I'm trying to renew myself, renew my energy, put my effort into giving my children what they need and making sure they feel ok for the future.

Helen, How old are you now?

Helen: 13

What do you now feel, do you feel you can live in Germany for the rest of your life? Or do you feel that one day you'll live in Syria again?

Helen: Sometimes I feel that I can stay in Germany, and sometimes I feel that I must go back to Syria. We have now a big war in Syria, and it is really dangerous for us. I don't want, but I have to be in Germany, to stay there, to have a good future. But, hopefully, some day we can return back to Syria.

Do you understand what your family has done for us? In educating us, in allowing Marcel to be amongst you, to record you in terrible times, and in great suffering, by giving us an intimate picture of how one family lives through this hell it enables us to connect in a way we could not before.

Helen: I understand that this is something very big, and Marcel coming in to the family really being part of the family and doing what he has done has been momentous.

Do you still have friends of your age in Aleppo?

Helen: There are some, but I don’t know where they are living. I don't know anything about them.

Do you ever try to call them on a mobile phone?

Helen: No, in Syria there are no mobile phones.

Yet, Hala, one of the most moving moments in the film was you with your mobile phone, is it still your world?

Hala: Yes of course, it's still the most important thing, because I haven't any news, if I lost any number I will have lost my family, my friends, everything. Every time I must contact people in Syria, to know what happens in Aleppo, for news of my family, for the family of my husband and for my friends. If I lost this small thing, I will have lost everything – my history and my future.

Have you had any word about your husband?

Hala: I don't know what happened; I want to know what happened. I try to know what happened, every time I look for this thing. When I was in Aleppo I go to the city where Daesh stay and I meet the prince and ask for him and to speak to him. I said, I am a woman alone with four children, I must know what has happened. But they didn’t tell me anything. They are lying all the time. There isn't any news, and for this moment I don't know what happened. I want to know if he is alive, or dead a lot of the time I wish he dead in front of my eyes, this is the very hard thing but I wish to know where he is – on the floor, or under the floor, or I don't know…

How do you feel about his decision to fight?

Hala: We were living a very good life in Aleppo before everything kicked off. I have a university education, my husband had a university education, we were living quite well. I would look at people who were less fortunate with less things and feel quite saddened about that. When the worst happened we both made a decision to stay and fight on.

What did you study at university?

Hala: Mechanical Engineering.

What would your advice be to family in Syria, to stay in Syria, go to the camps or try to make it all the way to Germany?

Hala: The problem is not what I will tell these people. The problem with all the world is that nobody wants Syrian people. Everyone, they must decide to stay, because nobody wants any Syrian people, they don’t have any choice, they must decide to stay or go by the sea – nobody wants any Syrian people and I don’t know why.

I hope for all the governments in the world to decide only one thing, everyone don't want any Syrian people but they can take Bashar al-Assad and let all of these people in their houses. It is very easy. For Obama, for anyone. After all these things, nobody can tell him [Assad], nobody could dream of the things that have happened in Syria.

The children… it is very dangerous and very bad to see your child under the stone, and you take his hand alone and his leg alone, it is a very very bad thing. Nobody can see these things, any person who has children and he must think – what happen if any child has any harm, from anything, it will make a problem.

But Syrian people and their children are very cheap, their blood is very very cheap, the Syrian blood is very cheap. We don’t come here to eat, we don’t come here to have a flat. I stayed for four years in Syria, I don't want to eat, and I can stay in the streets no problem, I am not afraid of anything. But I don't want to see my children, in front of my eyes, dead. At the last everyone wants out of Syria, not to eat, we stayed for five years without a lot of things, but it’s no problem. We need four walls and a ceiling, and to be safe with the children, not for myself, for my children.

In Syria a lot of time I hope to come with my children and be together, and sleep in the same place. But I don't want to stay alive without my children; everyone from Syria comes to Germany or another country in Europe for this reason. All the people must know that nobody comes here to take the food from another person, or to take his job or his flat, we want to be safe and we want all the world to speak. And to know what happened in Syria. All the world is a big house for everyone, and we are a big family. This is the letter I want to give to all the world.

What was the journey like?

Helen: It was hard, and we stayed for three months in Turkey while we waited for passports. It was really hard for us, and then suddenly everything was fine. I feel really safe with Marcel, as well as my sisters and my brother, he was another passport, something like that.

What would you like to be when you grow up, what would you like to study at University?

Helen: I want to be an architect, I want to go back and rebuild Syria. I want to help with the rebuilding process. Mohammed wants to be a doctor, with psychology, because after the war there will be a lot of people in Syria who need help.

Would you be happy for Helen to go back and rebuild Syria?

Hala: I wish for the war to finish, so that we can return all together to Syria. I hope to return to Syria, because if we can go to Syria that means that the war is finished.

 

Children on the Frontline, Tuesday the 10th of May at 10pm on Channel 4