Our family goal was to get to Germany, the dreamland. When I was 18, in 1978, our dream was coming true. In order to reunite the family with my grandfather who was 90 years old, we could immigrate to Karlsruhe. We, being children, could adapt ourselves without any problem. All the three boys went to Kent high school. After graduation I did the military stage and then I started the study of printing technology in Stuttgart.
Every man had in Romania the right to work, but here in the dreamland, no. This change was problematic for my mother, but finally she found work in an evangelical community in Karlsruhe.
My heart beats for Romania as well as it beats for Germany. I felt and I still feel very close to my hometown and the country where I was born. That is why I often spent my holidays in Romania at friends. I did the same at the end of 1982…”
New Years Eve. Uwe is partying with friends, the atmosphere is funny, most of them are dancing. The young man from Germany doesn’t enjoy dancing, so he sits in a corner. She, a young Romanian full of life wishes for him to dance too and so he participates at the party and they get to know each other. He is not her type, but he immediately falls in love with her honest nature.
My heart beats for Romania as well as it beats for Germany. I felt and I still feel very close to my hometown and the country where I was born. That is why I often spent my holidays in Romania at friends. I did the same at the end of 1982…”
New Years Eve. Uwe is partying with friends, the atmosphere is funny, most of them are dancing. The young man from Germany doesn’t enjoy dancing, so he sits in a corner. She, a young Romanian full of life wishes for him to dance too and so he participates at the party and they get to know each other. He is not her type, but he immediately falls in love with her honest nature.
Georgeta: „When Uwe got back to Germany he wrote to me very romantic letters. I didn’t take them seriously, I showed them to my friends and we discussed them. A lot of girls would have taken the chance to go to Germany immediately, but I didn’t want to leave my country. After I finished high school I started a study in the industrialization of wood and I was pleased with what I was doing.
My youth, the 70s in Romania were the golden years, a kind of continuous spring. In this period life in Romania was beautiful, especially if you were young, without any obligations. I had good friends with whom I shared my impressions and my childish thouhts, I had enough boys who admired me, but they weren’t profound enough.
Then I started to think about the silent and thoughtful boy from Germany in whose silence I could here more than just the small talk of most of my „friends”, who were tall with blue or green eyes how I imagined my dream boy. And so I decided to call him. His younger brother answered and although I was disapointed because Uwe didn’t answer and I asked for him to call back. The days were passing and I dindn’t get any call back. I almost lost my hope that he would call. But after three days he was standing right in front of me. I could not belive my eyes, it all seemed like a dream.”
Uwe: „When I first found out that Geta had called I started to find the quickest modality to get to Romania. The road to Romania was long and always filled with stress and hardship. I had to wait 24 hours at the borders. When I got to her I took her in my arms and kissed her.”
Then I started to think about the silent and thoughtful boy from Germany in whose silence I could here more than just the small talk of most of my „friends”, who were tall with blue or green eyes how I imagined my dream boy. And so I decided to call him. His younger brother answered and although I was disapointed because Uwe didn’t answer and I asked for him to call back. The days were passing and I dindn’t get any call back. I almost lost my hope that he would call. But after three days he was standing right in front of me. I could not belive my eyes, it all seemed like a dream.”
Uwe: „When I first found out that Geta had called I started to find the quickest modality to get to Romania. The road to Romania was long and always filled with stress and hardship. I had to wait 24 hours at the borders. When I got to her I took her in my arms and kissed her.”
„From our first embrace then we are one body and one soul in everything we do – we do everything together”, says Georgeta. The two decided to marry with the condition to return to Romania in case Georgeta would not accomodat herself in Germany. As a stranger – Uwe was then a German citizen – it was not easy to marry a Romanian. Firstly, the list of marriage proposals had to be completed by several pairs and then it had to be signed by the State Council, that means by Ceausescu himself in order to admit the marriage to take place so that the two could leave the country.”
Georgeta: „This procedure lasted a year. A year full of emotions and many roads made to Bucharest. In this year Uwe wrote to me a letter every day. Sometimes the letters were 12 pages long. Because the post did not bring them in time I could sometimes read more letters at once and then I felt like he was next to me. In 1986 we could finally leave for Germany as a married couple. On our car was written in capital letters „JUST MARRIED“.
I didn’t speak German at all and the beginning in Karlsruhe was very hard. I couldn’t talk to nobody, I had to take it all from zero and I felt like a stranger and without any roots. When I first went shopping I couldn’t believe my eyes. I started crying not understanding why there was so many and in Romania there was nothing. I thought that everything there was a waste, an exaggeration. I wanted to fill a train filled with everything and send it to Romania. My husband’s friends welcomed me warmly, but I still missed my friends. Just because we understood ourselves so well and because we loved and love each other, could overcome any obstacle and make it together.
As a Romanian who married a stranger I had to give up my citizenship. Not having a citizenship anymore I was sent to the Social Service for Immigrants. There I became the suggestion to go to IB. Here I got help, as well humanitarian as also practical from Lena and Iris. After the German courses followed at IWKA I got a job inside the company also with their help.
Iris came with me at the interview and helped me. Although I had a good paid job, after 5 years I wanted to do something else. I studied further and now a work as a dental technician at a dentist. The people I work with come all over the worls. I didn’t have any trouble because of my heritage.
This is our story which was published in a book concerning the integration of strangers in 2002.
Georgeta: „This procedure lasted a year. A year full of emotions and many roads made to Bucharest. In this year Uwe wrote to me a letter every day. Sometimes the letters were 12 pages long. Because the post did not bring them in time I could sometimes read more letters at once and then I felt like he was next to me. In 1986 we could finally leave for Germany as a married couple. On our car was written in capital letters „JUST MARRIED“.
I didn’t speak German at all and the beginning in Karlsruhe was very hard. I couldn’t talk to nobody, I had to take it all from zero and I felt like a stranger and without any roots. When I first went shopping I couldn’t believe my eyes. I started crying not understanding why there was so many and in Romania there was nothing. I thought that everything there was a waste, an exaggeration. I wanted to fill a train filled with everything and send it to Romania. My husband’s friends welcomed me warmly, but I still missed my friends. Just because we understood ourselves so well and because we loved and love each other, could overcome any obstacle and make it together.
As a Romanian who married a stranger I had to give up my citizenship. Not having a citizenship anymore I was sent to the Social Service for Immigrants. There I became the suggestion to go to IB. Here I got help, as well humanitarian as also practical from Lena and Iris. After the German courses followed at IWKA I got a job inside the company also with their help.
Iris came with me at the interview and helped me. Although I had a good paid job, after 5 years I wanted to do something else. I studied further and now a work as a dental technician at a dentist. The people I work with come all over the worls. I didn’t have any trouble because of my heritage.
This is our story which was published in a book concerning the integration of strangers in 2002.
