GA series: Bonn International Senior firefighter in Lohmar came here as refugee from Iran
Lohmar · In 2014, Hamed Sanipour and his wife fled Iran. They have since found a new home in Lohmar-Wahlscheid in the Rhine-Sieg district. The road to get there was long.
When Hamed Sanipour came to Germany from Iran with his wife, he didn't have to start from scratch, he says. That would have meant gradually gaining a foothold in a country where you already know the language and the structure, he says. But getting a foothold as quickly as possible without (German) language skills, shelter or resources means starting out with less than nothing, he says. It is now nine years since he started a new life in Lohmar-Wahlscheid, around twenty minutes by car from Bonn. He has long since made it past those first days by leaps and bounds: not only does he now have language skills, shelter and work, but also a sense of home and a new Wahlscheid family. He is a senior firefighter at the volunteer fire department of his hometown and with his fellow firefighters, they have a network of support where they all help each other if any problems arise.
Hamed Sanipour grew up in Shiraz in southern Iran. At the age of 18, he began studying IT, which he completed four years later. He searched for a long time for a job in his field, but only found one outside his field in the accounting department of a chemical company. "I thought to myself, just do it, I needed a job after all," Sanipour recalls. Initially, he sorted files, and after seven years he was head of department. But that wasn't the only thing that made the job more bearable: He met his wife at the company, she worked in the lab.
As great as everything turned out, the couple did not live a carefree life in their homeland. More and more, they were burdened by the lack of freedom under Iran's totalitarian regime. "Freedom is a big word. I understand it to mean that you are allowed to lead a completely normal life, in which the state does not dictate your private affairs, such as what clothes you have to wear or what hobbies you can have," says Hamed Sanipour. In Iran, he says, people are not allowed to decide what they believe, even though their faith is a very private matter. He and his wife felt increasingly oppressed by the state's strict regulations and controls, and eventually their safety was also threatened. In March 2014, they had to flee immediately. In the morning, Sanipour was still working at his company as usual, then he and his wife left their home and family forever and hurried to Tehran's airport.
There they looked for a smuggler who would take them to Canada for a lot of money. He took their passports and the journey began. It included a stopover in Cologne, where Hamed Sanipour and his wife waited three days for the onward journey. The trafficker finally told them that the trip to Canada would not work out, Germany was now the final stop. Passports and money were not returned to the couple. "Now we were sitting on the street in a foreign country with no documents and no money," the 40-year-old recalls. "The first words I learned were 'I am asylum.'" And with that phrase, the couple first found shelter in asylum centers in the Ruhr region, until they finally ended up in the Lohmar refugee center, where they lived for about four months.
Seeing the red fire trucks made him want to give something back
At first, the Iranian recalls, he and his wife were in shock: they had left their family and homeland forever, were strangers, didn't understand the language and had to deal with forms and letters every day. Hamed Sanipour's mother-in-law died in his homeland far away; to this day, the couple does not know the reasons for her death. In the meantime, the couple was expecting a child. With the help of the Protestant community of Lohmar and the Tafel Lohmar, they found their own apartment where they could have privacy. The couple waited two years for a hearing at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees and for a residence permit, without which neither of them was allowed to work.
During that time, Hamed Sanipour often went for walks in Wahlscheid. "Whenever I saw a red fire truck, it warmed my my heart. I really wanted to join, but thought it was impossible," he said. Already in Iran, he had volunteered as a paramedic with the Red Crescent - a counterpart to the Red Cross. "Germany saved me and my family, so I really wanted to give something back and help save people," Sanipour says.
Fellow firefighters have become like new family
The wish came true. In 2015, an acquaintance from Lohmar put him in touch with the volunteer fire department, which accepted him even without residency status. He helped out as a trainee for six months and was then allowed to start training. Today, he is a senior firefighter. "My fellow firefighters have helped me a lot. They have become my family," says the 40-year-old.
The stress and shock of fleeing Iran and the start of his new life in Germany have since subsided. Hamed Sanipour works in a Lohmar company as an IT specialist, his wife has graduated from the Bonn/Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences and is now working again in the same company as her husband. Their son is now eight years old and is among the best in his class at school. Sanipour's dream of "red fire trucks" has become reality: He can help save people, even if that means being called out on a mission in the middle of the night. "Wahlscheid has become my home. When we go on vacation, I sometimes miss it more than Iran," says Hamed Sanipour.
Orig. text: Sofia Grillo
Translation: ck
