ED LAND

IS ANGELA MERKEL’S GERMANY REALLY

IN THE SUMMER OF 2015, A CURIOUS

piece of world news brought a flicker

of hope to the wretched Syrian city of

Palmyra. Islamic State fighters had taken

over the ancient town, toppling its monu-

ments and executing anyone who resisted

their draconian rules. And yet at one of

the city’s darkest moments, rumors of a

sanctuary far away began to filter in, gen-

erating dreams among a populace that had

already lost everything. On Aug. 31 of that

year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel

declared that her country was prepared

to take in hundreds of thousands of refu-

gees fleeing war in the Middle East. “We

can do this,” she said in a speech in Ber-

lin, calling it a “national duty” to support

those in danger. Across Syria, preoccupa-

tions with the civil war gave way to fan-

tasies of an unlikely new promised land:

the Germany of Mama Merkel.

The Chancellor suddenly became a

positive punch line to dark jokes about

Syrians’ futures, says Yehiya Moham-

mad, a driver from Palmyra who at the

time had just been released from one of

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s notori-

ous prisons. “People would be talking to

each other... One would suggest, ‘Just go.’

‘Go where?’ ‘Go to Mama Merkel—she’s

accepting everyone.’”

As the war eviscerated what was left

of Syria’s schools and hospitals, many

Syrians like Mohammad realized that they

had no choice but to leave if they wanted

their children to have a future. Taimaa

Abazli, a 25-year-old ethereal beauty from

I

THE PARADISE REFUGEES BELIEVE IT TO BE?

BY ARYN BAKER/BERLIN

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LYNSEY ADDARIO FOR TIME

Nour Altallaa, her husband

Yousef Alarsan and their daughter

Rahaf explore their new home in a

camp near Bad Berleburg,

Germany, on July 19