It all started when I began working as a sports educator for refugee children living in the old military barracks in Spandau, Berlin. It was just a job in the beginning, but it slowly turned into much more. It changed my life.

Built in 1914–18, the “Kaserne” was occupied by British forces between 1945 and the early 90s. It is located next to the garrison jail that the Allies converted into a war crimes prison, where Nazi criminals convicted by the international military tribunal at the Nuremberg trials were held. But with the fall of the Berlin Wall, its tenants left and, from then on, only small businesses and wild animals occasionally inhabited the area.

But in 2015 it opened its doors as an emergency centre for thousands of people arriving in Berlin, mainly from Syria, but also from Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and other countries. Originally, the former barracks was meant to serve as a short-term arrival centre. But the lack of accommodation in other areas of town forced it to stay open for longer, and for many it became a new home.

The children

In the beginning, the place had no charm at all. It was a very efficient centre, with different buildings grouped around a parade ground and families of different origins living in rooms with bunk beds and very little privacy. At that time, approximately 1,500 people were living there.

The culture shock was huge: there were many different – and sometimes clashing – cultures and traditions to acknowledge, different social statuses to contemplate and anxiety and fears to manage.

But after the chaos of the day came the calm of the evenings, when the nocturnal wild animals in the area would arrive. Many children had never seen a fox, a raccoon or a bat before, so they would follow me around asking questions and screaming every time they saw an animal. For them, such creatures were scary and dangerous. So the animals ran away and were nowhere to be seen.

Slowly, the children began to understand there was no threat as long as they showed respect for the animals and gave them space, watching from afar. They became curious and wanted to know more, especially about what made foxes so interesting to photograph. After a while, they started to play with the cameras themselves, trying to picture the animals while eating, hunting or carrying food back to their burrow.

But it wasn’t easy to see them, so we started a game in which the children pretended to be the foxes, posing before the camera in different positions. In the meantime, I prepared my equipment and then we sat in near silence, in my van, holding our breath, waiting for the flash to go off in the dark …

The rescue

One of the darker stories of these years in the Kaserne happened in July 2018. Two of the children came running, overexcited after spotting a fox through a window. That window belonged to an old office on the first floor of an abandoned warehouse, and it was clear that something was wrong as the fox was scratching everything and desperately jumping up and down. When I got inside there were two of them and they had been locked in deliberately, without food or water. It was disheartening and tragic.

They were thin and scared, suspicious, and it took a lot of time and patience to get them out of there. But once we did, the younger boy felt like an absolute hero for saving the fox from a grim death.

The deportation

The worst moment though, was the night one of the families was deported. We had been taking pictures underneath the van with all five siblings, and the fox happened to show up just after they went home. I packed my stuff, happy that I would be showing them the picture the next day.

But as I was walking towards the exit, I saw two police vans, an ambulance and a black car. “They are going back to Macedonia,” I was told. As the family left the building, the little ones were crying, the older brother was laughing nervously as if he didn’t know what was happening, and the mother kept her head down.

I felt frustrated for days as these five kids were already part of the Kaserne family. They had had the chance to study and live far away from ethnic discrimination, but were instead forced to go back as their country of origin wasn’t at war.

Now back in their hometown, Dzengis and his sister Anela work seven days a week at a vineyard with their mother during the harvesting season, contributing to the family income. They work long days and commuting is not an option, so they are generally away from home. Their younger sister, Sania, spends her days scouting the rubbish dumps around her home hoping to find toys while Medina, who is too young to work like her siblings and too old to play with Sania, stays at home and runs errands for her mother. She says she misses school and her friends in Germany. Ercan, a friend who also used to live in Berlin and now lives 45km away, spends most of his time collecting trash for his father to sell. When they have time, his father teaches him how to ride his old motorbike.

A new home in Berlin

In Berlin, the children have moved to a new home. They go to school and have different hobbies: some play football and others take music or dancing lessons. Some are still in touch with the families in Macedonia, but most of the children remember their friends only when they see them in pictures.

The time of the Kaserne is one to remember. In the three years we spent there, we managed to create a strong and hopefully long-lasting bond, a close relationship based on affection and trust and empowered by photography and a love of nature.