Click here to go to the website of the DIWAN project.

What does successful coexistence look like?
Where can we communicate about it?
Do we only learn what we have always known, or do we contribute to something new?

The team of the DIWAN project of Fulda University of Applied Sciences (DIalogue Processes and WANderausstellung for a Successful Coexistence in the Migration Society), together with cooperation partners, has been organising places of exchange in East Hessian municipalities since 2018 in order to stimulate conversation between actors and those affected, between new and old. The exhibition takes up statements made by people in East Hesse - and sets the mood for the conversation. It shakes up old certainties and looks at coexistence in Eastern Hesse from unusual perspectives.

DIWAN project
Monika Alisch and Martina Ritter - project managers
Catharina Hille, Jonas Hufeisen, Tatevik Mamajanyan
Georgia Rakelmann - exhibition curator
Projektwerkstatt 2.4

Simple language

Living together in East Hesse

Many different people live in East Hesse.
Some have lived here for a long time.
Others are new here.
They come from other countries.

How can they live well together?
Where can they talk to each other?
What can they learn from each other?
Maybe they already know a lot about the others.
Or they learn something new.

That's why the University of Applied Sciences Fulda is doing a project.
The project is called DIWAN. That's how it's pronounced: di wan.
DIWAN is making an exhibition in many places in East Hesse.
The exhibition shows people from East Hesse.
The people tell stories: This is what we think about the others.
At DIWAN they can talk about these questions:

• What do we have in common?
• What is different?
• How do we want to live together?
• What do we want from each other?

The new residents and old residents in East Hesse get to know each other better. They find out: this is how we can live together better.

Eastern Hesse. Immigration and Emigration

Expulsions and hardship brought people from East Hesse to the East in the 18th century and to the West in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Jewish East Hessians were harassed, deported and murdered in the 1930s and 1940s. At the same time, forced labourers were deported to East Hesse until 1945. In the mid-1940s, former forced labourers and survivors of the death camps prepared for emigration. Refugees and displaced persons from German-speaking regions of Central and Eastern Europe came to Eastern Hesse. Later, labour migrants from Southern Europe, Turkey and people from Russia moved in. Most recently, refugees came from Asia Minor and Africa.

Sick bay in the Cornfeld camp for displaced persons 1946

Here and elsewhere, new arrivals are often met with suspicion. This was also the case for emigrants from the Fulda area:
Dee Lüd sen üweroll mistrauisch ogegut worn. Au de Uiswanerer uis de Gächend von Foll:

"In particular, in 1834 the mayors of the district of Giessen were warned against the so-called 'Fulder Taglöhner', (day labourers), among whom ... who, under thepretext of seeking work, in fact only indulge in vagabond life and fornication and live from begging, fraud, theft and robbery"(B. Wagner, Stadtarchiv Staufenberg).

Rhöner Platt
East Hessian. Iwanderung und Uiswanderung
Flucht un Not hon Mänsche uis Osthesse im oachtzante Joarhonert in de Weste gebroicht. In the safe and uncertain years of the last Joarhonert, Jewish East Hessians were killed, murdered and exterminated. In the same period, up to five forced Jews were sent to East Hesse. In the middle of the war, forced migrants and those who had survived from Dodesloch prepared for emigration. Refugees and representatives from the German-speaking countries of Central and Eastern Europe still came to East Hesse. Later on, there would also be people from Southern Europe, Turkey and Russia. They even came from Asia Minor and Africa at the end.

One place - many lives

یکمکان - زندگیهایزیاد

Home Boxes
سینههایخانگ

Eastern Hesse is home for many people. Some previously had another one in other parts of the Federal Republic or further away in Silesia, in Anatolia, in the Balkans or in Syria.
Most people have several homes: past and present, inner and outer or local and spiritual.

"The last thing my mother gave me." Home box of an East Hessian from Syria.

"Refugee child ... My parents could not return to their homeland" Home box of an East Hessian from East Prussia

Farsi
هسنشرقیمحلزندگیبسیاریازمردماست

برخیقبلاًدیگریرادرمناطقدیگرجمهوریفدرالیادورتردرسیلسیا،آناتولی،بالکانیاسوریهداشتهاند

اکثر مردم چندین خانه دارند.: گذشته و حال ، داخلی و خارجی ، یا محلی ومعنوی

مردمدرشرقهسندلتنگیوسرگردانی۶همچنینخاطراتدردناکوزیبارادرجعبههایخانه

School beginners in Eastern Hesse and Russia (© DIWAN)

Old familiar and new. How do places and landscapes sound?

Quels sons produisent les lieux et paysages?

Meeting places. Where are we together?

الاجتماعأماكن

People see each other, notice similarities and differences, get used to each other, exchange information - directly or indirectly. Is that enough for successful living together - and where can you actually make agreements?
Where do you meet other people - known and unknown?

Arabic

ترونبعضكمالبعض،وتلاحظونأوجهالتشابهوالاختلاف, عتادونعلىبعضكمالبعض،وتتبادلونالأفكار - بشكلمباشرأوغيرمباشر. هلهذاكافٍلتعايشناجح - وأينيمكنعقدالاتفاقاتبالفعل؟

What does the world look like when you look out of a headscarf? What do you perceive from a motorbike outfit?

Tigrinya
እዛዓለምብናይካልኦትሰባትዓይኒ ( ኣረኣእያ)እንታይትመስል።እስከፈትኖናይካልኦትኣህዛብባህሊ (ንኣብነትኣከዳድና) ኣብነብስኻ/ኺእንታይከምዝመስል።

Viewpoint. A dangerous, untamed and enterprising creature is behind the doors.

If you trust yourself to see it, carefully open the doors. What do you see?

Russian
опасное, необузданное и.
предприимчивое существо

Conversation roller

Statements were compiled from the minutes of the future workshops. What was thought about the old and new neighbours? What words were exchanged? How are neighbourly relations developing?
This can be seen on a "conversation roller":

... many people don't want to talk to foreigners
... guests have to adapt here
... think badly of foreigners
... ten o'clock is the shift ... actually quiet ... by law!
... would like to have more German people German language contact
... we don't have a dog at all, but ... as a dog breed then titled
... living without a language is quite difficult
... no friendship has to develop now. It's enough if you can just live together
... good place, many friends found

Turkish
... bir çok insan yabancılarla konuşmak istemiyor
... Misafirler buraya ayak uydurması lazım
... Yabancılar hakkında kötü düşünüyorlar
... Saat 10:00'da mesai bitiyor ... bu aslında sessizlik demek ... kanunen
... bir çok Alman arkadaşım olmasını isterdim dilden dolayı...
... Bizim buradaki misafirlerle dışarda oturmak ve muhabbete girmek için
... Dilsiz yaşamak çok zor
... bizim hiç köpeğimiz yok... Ama adımız yinede köpek cinsinden anılıyor
... arkadaşlık kurmamıza gerek yok. Birbirimizden anlaşsak yeterli...
... İyi bir yer çok arkadaş buldum burada

Participants and Acknowledgements

Kurdish
Şop û spas kirin

We would like to thank all those who have contributed to the exhibition, who have given information, pictures or boxes of memories, who have helped to conceive and think, who have worked and organised, who have accompanied, supported and advised.