21mm - focal length of the human eye: these are pictures from my life as a reporter.
My name is Rico Grimm. I am a reporter from Berlin.
All photographs and texts on this page are my work. You can use them though, if you credit me. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
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KZ-Nummer als Tattoo
von Rico Grimm
157622. Das ist die Nummer auf Eli Sagirs Unterarm – dieselbe, die ihrem Großvater im Konzentrationslager gestochen wurde. Junge Israelis wollen durch solche Tätowierungen an das Schicksal ihrer Familien erinnern. Und provozieren damit viele im Land.
Eigentlich sind Tattoos nach jüdischem Glauben verboten – der Mensch sei das Ebenbild Gottes, sein Körper dürfe nicht entweiht werden mit „geätzter Schrift“. Daran halten sich natürlich nicht alle. In Israel gibt es wie in jedem Land Tattoo-Studios und eine lebhafte Szene. Aber das alte religiöse Gesetz macht Tattoos etwas seltener, etwas außergewöhnlicher als in Deutschland – und eine Nummer auf dem Unterarm junger Mädchen wie Eli Sagir erst recht.
Sie ist nicht die Einzige, die sich ein Holocaust-Tattoo stechen lassen hat; ein Dutzend ungefähr gibt es in Israel. Die Träger eint, dass sie Mitte 20 sind und die Erinnerungen an ihre Großeltern nicht verlieren wollen; durch die Tätowierung können sie das auch nicht mehr.
„Ich bin ein reicher Mann“, hat der Großvater immer gesagt. „Nicht reich an Geld, aber schaut mein Leben an: reich an allem anderen.“ Eli Sagir sagt: „Ich könnte ein Bild von ihm bei mir tragen, ein bestimmtes Armband vielleicht, aber diese Dinge kann man alle ablegen. Dieses Tattoo bin ich.“
When the beards get longer, the hats weirder, the guns bigger, the domes more golden and the ailes more narrow, when the trams get too crowded, your roomies french, the politics more complicated, the stones whiter, the hill slopes smoother, the cabbies more rude and the sky clearer - then you know that you are in Jerusalem again. Hello!
This is Gunter, he owns a German restaurant in Iraq, in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan. Ordering a beer in his restaurant was a small home-coming for me. Because the beer was brewed 10km away from where I grew up. The food Gunter cooked was the same my grandma always prepared for me. Gunter comes from a small town in Thuriniga, in the middle of Germany. Him owning a restaurant in Iraq was not a propect he could have fathomed some 25 years earlier. It was the fall of 1989 when he went for "a walk" and demanded freedom of movement, when he demonstrated against the government of the German Democratic Republic. In a childish move of vengeance this government enlisted him for military service. A couple of weeks later the Wall came down and the East-German forces were reunited with their West-German counterparts. Gunter stayed in the army and did what he had learned. He cooked. In Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Kabul. It was in the Afghan capital that he opened his first restaurant in 2003. Times were good at that time in Afghanistan. Everybody was optimistic, Gunter recalls. With every bomb attack this optimism vanished further, making him closing his restaurant in the process. 30.000 Euros were lost. He started again in Iraq. Same story here: many Internationals, optimism, no competition. This time it worked. Gunter wants to open his next restaurant on the island of Sri Lanka. When I was asking Gunter what he thinks of Germany, if he would go back, he replied: "What could I possibly want there?"
An Iranian dissident in his room, June 2013, Berlin
This is Hesam Misaghi, a 25-year old Iranian. Other Iranians are electing a new president today. He lives and soon studies in Berlin and has not seen home since three years. He is a dissident, he took part in the so called "Green Movement" which almost toppled the Iranian regime four years ago. But only almost.
But the oppression started for Hesam even earlier - because he is a Bahai, a member of a religious group that the Iranian government dsicriminates against. Once, he was five year old, did he visit his grandparents. This happened (in his words):
"The door bell rang and when my grandparents opened they saw two bearded guys who began to search the apartment. After they found the library of my grandpa they confiscated his books. My uncle had deposited his whole collection of Tin-Tin-comics there. My favourite adventure was Tintins Journey to the Moon and I had to watch helplessly how these bearded guys took away the comics. They were not stupid, they knew exactly that Tintin is harmless. But they liked them and they had the power to take them away. I was really sad."
It started with comic books, in 2009 the police threatened to arrest him because he was a dissident blogger. They had already jailed seven of his friends. Hesam had to flee.
A German army technician, Kahramanmaras, Turkey, April 2013
This is Thomas W., technician with the German army. Being part of a Nato-deployment, he was stationed in South Turkey for three months. Look at his shoulders, they tell alot about him - because they are empty. Thomas W. wears his uniform badge on his breast.
He is a optimistic, funny guy from Hamburg trying to cope with the boredom of this deployment. In the back of the picture you can see the improvised workshop where he and his team tend to the cars and trucks of the German units.
You can read my full (German) report about this Nato-Operation here:
