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Hara Hotel

A Tale of Syrian Refugees in Greece

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
A first-hand account of a Greek refugee camp—and the stories of the refugees staying there

Syrian Kurd Juwan Azad left his home and family in Damascus in 2011 to flee military service under the al-Assad regime. After several troubled years as a refugee in Turkey, he arrived in Greece by sea, on the route taken by hundreds of thousands of his fellow Syrians seeking a safe haven in Europe. But as borders closed across the Balkans in early 2016, Juwan and his fellow Syrians found themselves blocked from travelling any further.
Teresa Thornhill volunteered at Hara Hotel, a makeshift camp on the Greece–Macedonia border. An Arabic speaker, she met Syrians from all walks of life as she distributed clothing and organized activities for children. One of the Syrians was Juwan, who would later walk through the mountains of Macedonia to safety in Austria.
In Hara Hotel, Thornhill interweaves a narrative of daily life at the camp with Juwan’s extraordinary story, the recent history of the revolution in Syria, and an account of the ensuing civil war, painting a vivid picture of the predicament of Syrians trapped on Europe’s borders.

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    • Kirkus

      February 15, 2018
      Thornhill (The Curtain Maker of Beirut: Conversations with the Lebanese, 2011, etc.) offers a personal account of her time volunteering in Greece as refugees arrived from Syria and other nations beset by strife.A British child protection barrister by profession, the author, like countless other citizens of the world, had been moved by the plight of mostly Middle Eastern refugees who seek better lives in Europe but instead end up herded into camps like cattle. Taking stock of "what skills I could offer," Thornhill thought that her middling ability to speak Arabic might help. She made arrangements to assist through an organization of volunteers based in Norway and received an assignment to report to an encampment in northern Greece dubbed the Hara Hotel. Arriving there in April 2016, the author became acquainted with a Syrian Kurd refugee named Juwan Azad, who was driven away from a war-torn section of Syria. Azad spoke English fluently, which gave Thornhill the opportunity to learn from him in-depth. Later, hoping to establish a permanent life away from the refugee camps, Azad risked his life hiking through Macedonia, Serbia, and Hungary to cross into Austria. Thornhill learned of Azad's journey, reuniting with him near Vienna to gain compelling material for this book. In January 2017, the author re-entered Greece for just over a week to find out what had happened to the refugees who were temporarily stranded at Hara Hotel, among other sites. Although not every refugee was despairing for the future by early 2017, what the author uncovered contains far more darkness than light. Thornhill overlays the wrenching refugee sagas with her personal quest to understand why Syria began its alarming unraveling in 2011. What she learned might not feel revelatory to knowledgeable diplomats, but it will certainly enlighten casual followers of that nation's bloodshed.A brave, affecting book about a continuing humanitarian crisis.

      COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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  • English

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