Student ID, Free University of Berlin, 1962
Hasan Barlas Foçali was born on June 6, 1939, in the Turkish town of Ayancık. In 1946, the family moved from the Black Sea to the big city of Istanbul. At his father’s request, Hasan Foçali went to study in Germany after completing high school. He arrived in Berlin in June 1961, just a few weeks before the construction of the Berlin Wall. There, he intended to study medicine or engineering but initially took an internship at Siemens, where he took care of the concerns of the first Turkish “guest workers” in the company as a home manager and interpreter. In the summer semester of 1962, Hasan Barlas Foçali finally began his dental studies at the Free University of Berlin. In 1965, he returned to Turkey for personal reasons, completing his studies at Istanbul University in 1970. Hasan Foçali served his military duty as a dental reserve officer. One evening in Istanbul, he met his current German wife, Ilona, who was vacationing in Turkey with her family and was the reason for his return to Germany in November 1971. The following year, they got married and had three children. Until his retirement in 2008, Hasan Foçali worked first in Berlin and later in Lippstadt as a dentist. The biography of Hasan Barlas Foçali shows that Turkish immigration cannot be reduced solely to the so-called “guest worker migration” starting in 1961. Even before and after the German-Turkish recruitment agreement, Turks went to Germany not only to work but also to study, for example. However, due to their significantly smaller numbers, they were often perceived as “guest workers.” The student ID is an important document of Turkish educational migration to Germany.
