Hasan Sahin
“Man, this is not a sea, this is a dark soup,” recalls Hasan Sahin about his first impressions of Bremerhaven, after growing up in the Turkish port city of Istanbul with a light blue sea and emigrating to Bremerhaven in 1974 with his parents and sister. “I followed my parents – they had already been in Germany a year earlier, and I joined them in 1973.” Like many foreign workers, Hasan Sahin’s parents came to Germany in the early 1970s to earn money and later build a house in Turkey after returning. Initially, they were employed at a porcelain factory in Bavaria. During this time, Hasan and his sister stayed with relatives in Turkey – separated from each other. In 1973, Hasan Sahin’s parents finally decided to bring their son and daughter to Germany. This, however, turned out to be somewhat challenging due to the language barrier, but after a brief bureaucratic back and forth, the family was reunited. After a short stay in Bavaria, the family finally moved to Bremerhaven in the summer of 1974, where the parents found work at the Bremerland dairy. For Hasan Sahin, this meant continuing to learn German, especially through books. He had already taught himself German in Bavaria with the help of a dictionary: “I memorized the dictionary. In the end, however, it wasn’t enough because they spoke with a Franconian dialect in Bavaria, which I, of course, couldn’t understand. When I got here to Bremerhaven, I had a Bavarian accent and the kids here laughed at me.” After graduating from school in 1976, he trained as a car mechanic and now works at BLG. “I really like my job; there’s something new every day. I’m fascinated by what’s inside the ships, how large they are, and what can be done there.” The Sahins never returned to Turkey. There was always something in the way, whether it was training or children, causing their return to be postponed again and again.
A portrait of Hasan Sahin is one of the faces visible on the façade of the new German Emigrant House since June 2021. Before the inauguration of the extension with the artistically designed façade, the Nordsee-Zeitung introduced the people behind the faces. You can see the corresponding film portrait of Hasan Sahin here.