Janina Findeisen traveling pregnant to Syria to meet your Islamist friend. There she is kidnapped. 351 days, the journalist held hostage by jihadists. Your child comes to the world.
Bad happens is always the other, never a self. So in about Janina Findeisen is thinking when she decides to travel to a crisis area, into the midst of the Syrian civil war. The reason: an Exclusive first-Hand news of terrorists and jihadi supporters, the win in the Chaos of the civil war.
The contact of this group is to connect Laura, an old school friend from home. Laura had travelled for ten years previously to the Pakistani tribal area Waziristan, known to be had to the Jihad, and was never again returned to Germany.
“This should be my debut film, which tells the story of friendship to Laura,” says the journalist in an interview with Deutsche Welle.
This was in the fall of 2015. Find iron flies with Laura’s mother to the Turkish Antakya. There smugglers to bring them to Laura wait. The Situation on the border has heated up, border officials beat the refugees, bombs falling in the vicinity. Laura’s mother decides to reverse. The heavily pregnant continue alone, despite all the warnings. “There was a guarantee of security, which has given me actually safety. They had meaning for me. It was naive from today’s perspective, but at the Moment I have assessed it differently,” she says, explaining her decision.
The word of the girlfriend as a guarantee of safety
“There are guarantees of safety for journalists in certain situations. The guarantee of security in my case was sent to me via Email from my friend. Based on trust. Her word was enough for me in this Moment,” says Findeisen.
The safety guarantee sufficient, in fact, for the time being. The traffickers bring them to Northern Syria. There she meets her friend, spends eight days with her. Find iron can actually tie in with the Dschihadistin to the common Bonner school. “She was still my girlfriend; we had known each other for too long. It was, of course, happens to much that I could say, it was like it used to. But: We have a relationship of trust. The base was set for what we are, why this trip is.”
The Friends talk to each other much, Janina conducts Interviews with her and a commander of the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nusra Front, also belongs to Laura. It is the terrorist group, the will take you later.
You drive through the area. Janina is not Worried. “We are through the North of Syria, dangers, Idlib, and I filmed from the window of our cars,” she says. “The Situation out there on the roads at the various Checkpoints, the streets, the bombed suburbs.”
Again and again the Northern Syrian city of Idlib of attacks is shaken
As Janina has enough Material for her Film, she says goodbye to her friend and drives a Taxi towards the Turkish border. A fighter of Laura’s group will accompany you. Shortly before the border, the car stopped: “I had a short time before was a strange feeling. The Taxi drove to slow, too fast, and then it was stopped by several men with balaclavas and Kalashnikovs,” she told DW. “They moved the driver and the passenger out of the car and got in. Then put a fighter next to me. In the Moment I had incredible anxiety, but at the same time, totally calm, because I realized: there’s nothing I can do.”
Deutsche Welle as a connection to the outside world
The kidnappers connect the high pregnant the eyes and continue. It was the first 351 days of the hostage. You will be brought to every couple of months to a different house – nine in total. Always blindfolded, so that she realizes where she is.
It fits and does what it tells her: be Quiet, not to scream, to flee. You bring your food and clothes, the room may never leave you. If you move, she gets a blindfold, and may you place first, if you are in the new house. Eventually you ask her a small television in the room. If there is current, it looks Deutsche Welle. This is your only connection to the outside world.
As the birth is getting closer Janina is impatient. It simulates multiple contractions, in the hope to be in a hospital. In vain. “The kidnappers have brought a woman doctor from the North of Syria to me,” she says. “They had kidnapped her husband, so she told nothing, and with the birth of care. You have told her, if me or the child what is happening, dies, her husband. She confessed to me at some point during your Visit in tears.”
Janina has anxiety, but one trusts that everything will go well. She has no other choice. The woman’s doctor. “The kidnappers were ready at any time to me in front of the camera to cut off the head. That was perfectly clear.”
Findeisen: “The book has helped me to process the experience”
How do you keep such a pressure? “By looking at Deutsche Welle,” replied the journalist with a smile. “And I tried to cling to me to my most beautiful memories. In my Childhood, my youth, my life, what I had had in a state of security and prosperity. These memories I summoned every day. I only counted the hours, then days. Eventually, I had done 100 days.”
The way home
After eleven months of captivity the Unexpected happens: Masked men storm the house, and in the Janina is recorded. You call out your name and out to get you. The young mother is not confused, does not understand what is happening here. “I thought it is another jihadist group that wanted me to take over,” she says. “I thought, it is a liberation. I thought it was a new kidnapping.”
The liberators are supposed to be fighters of a different Al-Nusra group. You want to confess but with the security guarantee and keep your word. After nearly a year! So it is told findeisen at least later. You take off your blindfold and take you with her son to a car. Takes you straight to the Turkish border. German security officials are already waiting. Mother and child are finally in safety.
Pregnant to Syria. Today, you know: That was a mistake. After her return, she has written about the time when the terrorists book. “The Writing helped me to process the experience”.