Home is, what Others Talk about

A story of flight and displacement – and of the difficulties of integration.

In 1949, twenty Danube Swabian families from the village of Brestowatz in the Batschka, situated in Serbia today, moved to a refugee camp in Obersuhl, Hessen. Having fled from the approach of the Soviet army in 1944, the families found a temporary abode here. Although they thought of themselves as German, they came to Germany as strangers. Sealed off from the surrounding environ­ ment, they revived their own way of life, spoke their original dia­ lect, and cultivated their old traditions.
Between the ages of 3 and 12, Rosemarie Bovier grew up in this Brestowatz world in Obersuhl. The stories of the villagers shaped her ideas of home, but when she started kindergarten and school she experienced another world: Rosemarie began to feel that being different was a flaw, and that living in the refugee camp was degrading.
In the area of conflict between the home of her family (der­ho­m) and her new home (dohaus), the authoress recounts the sto­ry of her integration. She tells of a past idyll and a displaced version of reality that begins to emerge, little by little.

Rosemarie Bovier, born in 1947 in Obersuhl, Germany. Studied literature and geography in Frankfurt/Main to become a teacher and consultant. She lives in Wolfenbüttel.