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Tempelhof strips away the dehumanizing effect of anonymity surrounding the extraordinary number of refugees displaced since 2014, highlighting their individual journeys of courage, fear, and hope as they fled their homes for the west and began the process of cultural integration. Although the current migrant crisis has been ongoing for at least a decade, the inflammatory, often inaccurate rhetoric surrounding the topic of immigration and refugees has peaked again in 2018. Tempelhof, the documentary, offers a stunning, timely counterpoint to the dehumanization and stereotyping of migrants perpetuated by fear and misunderstanding. Highlighting individual accounts of refugees trying to reach the West from Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, and Syria, through the Balkans and on to Germany, Tempelhof is the story of many people caught up in a vicious series of ongoing conflicts and political/cultural struggles within countries. By concentrating on the refugees and migrants as individuals, Tempelhof seeks to reverse the psychological process of dehumanization by creating empathy for and recognizing the humanity of each courageous interviewee.

Since the peak of the current refugee crisis in 2014, over 1.8 million refugees have entered Europe, fleeing from violence, persecution, poverty, war, and starvation. While the flood of refugees has slowed somewhat in the last three years, the inflammatory, often inaccurate rhetoric surrounding the topic of immigration and refugees has spiked again in 2018, leading to a growing surge of anti-immigrant voices in both the US and Europe as well as an increase in violence toward refugees.

Dehumanization is a simple psychological process wherein a person views another person as less human. When a group is sufficiently stigmatized as intellectually and morally inferior, it becomes socially acceptable to persecute them, leading to a measurable increase in hatred, alienation, violence, and death. In numerous studies, groups that elicited the most disgust (rather than empathy) were poor people, drug addicts, and immigrants.

Although Tempelhof highlights the stories of Middle Easterners trying to reach the West from Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, and Syria, through the Balkans and on to Germany, the effects continue to ripple outward, threatening to engulf us all. Except for the Native American population, the United States is made up of the descendants of refugees and immigrants. Like the current refugees, our ancestors were seeking religious freedom, economic opportunity, or fleeing war and oppression. An alarmingly vocal growing number of US citizens seem to have forgotten our shared experience. Utilizing the language of dehumanization, painting them as criminal, dangerous, lazy, and dumb to justify refusing entry, erases empathy, a critical human emotion, and paves the way for events like the separation of families at the border and the use of tear gas on women and children.

However, while dehumanization is the first step in escalating hatred and persecution against marginalized outgroups, the psychological process can be reversed merely by recognizing the humanity of others. The Tempelhof stories aim to challenge the growing culture of fear in the US concerning refugees and migrants by creating empathy and underscoring our common ground.

My whole life has led up to telling this story. 

I grew up on Long Island, New York.  My mother was a schoolteacher and active in the Civil Rights Movement.  She taught me to work to overcome racial stereotypes that affected how I was perceived and how I viewed myself. One of the most formative events in my life was attending the March on Washington with my mother in 1963.  I learned from hearing Martin Luther King’s famous "I Have A Dream" speech that I should measure a person by their character and their actions, rather than the color of their skin. Fast forward, and my family ended up living in Japan for two years.  In the fairly recent wake of WWII, my mother and father insisted my brothers and I learn about the Japanese as individuals and fully experience their culture.

I learned to recognize and overcome stereotypes I had within myself about how I saw the Japanese.  I learned to measure a person’s actions as well as their beliefs to determine if there is common ground on which to base a friendship.   Tolerance and empathy became part of my moral compass.

As an adult, I lived and served in the US military in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe from 2001 to 2014. While deployed to Bosnia, Iraq, Horn of Africa, and Germany, I saw first hand the effects of war on people caught up in the relentless cycles of continual conflict. There was a moment, still seared into my memory, from Kurdistan that really became the driving force of my vision. I passed a little girl in a field.  She was barefoot, wearing a fluffy, bright pink dress and had thick, curly black hair. When I saw her, I thought immediately, "She looks like my daughter!" The impression so shocked me that I couldn’t even speak. After we had passed her for a few minutes one of the soldiers with me turned and said, " You know that little girl looked exactly like your daughter."

It changed the whole narrative of war for me. Humans went from enemy combatants to people who had families like mine, desperate to survive in a combat zone. It became so much more than winning a war. It became building peace so they could have a better life. 

From 2011 to 2017 I carefully followed the Arab Spring, the Syrian Civil War, and the rise of the Islamic State.  As refugees fled from Syria and Iraq to Europe incidents of terrorism and violence erupted both against refugees and host nation civilians.  I wanted to meet the refugees to hear their stories and determine if they were a threat.

In the spring of 2017, I traveled from Lesbos, Greece, through the Balkans to Berlin, Germany interviewing refugees, migrants, and social workers. Tempelhof documents the refugee and migrant situation from the Balkans to Berlin, Germany. I am planning to do the same covering refugees from southern Italy to Berlin.

On the base of the Statue of Liberty, are these words “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”  Tempelhof has the power to help US citizens realize our society is more than our past, more than our trumped-up fears, and to help viewers understand that how we respond determines our future. How will we deal with the waves of people who arrive in the US and Europe to build new lives? With disgust, alienation, and persecution or empathy, understanding, and support? 

Über das Projekt

Tempelhof beseitigt die entmenschlichende Wirkung der Anonymität im Zusammenhang mit der außergewöhnlichen Zahl von Flüchtlingen, die seit 2014 vertrieben wurden und zeigt deren individuelle Reisen in Mut, Angst und Hoffnung, seit sie aus ihren Häusern in den Westen flohen und den Prozess der kulturellen Integration begannen. Im Jahr 2018 hat die aufrührerische, oft unrichtige Rhetorik rund um das Thema Einwanderung und Refugees  ihren Höhepunkt wieder erreicht, doch die gegenwärtige Migrationskrise  währt seit mindestens einem Jahrzehnt. Die Dokumentation "Tempelhof" bietet einen erstaunlichen, zeitgemäßen Kontrapunkt zu der Entmenschlichung und Stereotypisierung von Migranten, die durch Angst und Missverständnisse aufrechterhalten wird.                                                                               

Indem sie einzelne Berichte über Flüchtlinge, die von Afghanistan, dem Irak, Ägypten und Syrien über den Balkan bis nach Deutschland in den Westen zu gelangen versuchten, beleuchtet, ist Tempelhof die Geschichte vieler Menschen, die in eine schreckliche Reihe von fortbestehenden Konflikten und  politisch-kulturellen Kämpfen in verschiedenen Ländern verwickelt wurden.                                                                                                                             

Durch die Konzentration auf die Flüchtlinge und Migranten als Einzelpersonen sucht Tempelhof den psychologischen Prozess der Entmenschlichung umzukehren, indem er durch Wiedererkennen und Empathie für die mutigen InterviewpartnerInnen schafft.

Seit dem Höhepunkt der aktuellen Flüchtlingskrise im Jahr 2014, sind über 1,8 Millionen Flüchtlinge vor Gewalt, Verfolgung, Armut, Krieg und Hungersnot nach Europa geflohen. Während sich die Flut von Flüchtlingen in den letzten drei Jahren etwas verlangsamt hat, nahm die hetzerische, oft unrichtige Rhetorik rund um das Thema Einwanderung und Flüchtlinge im Jahr 2018 erneut zu, was zu einem wachsenden Schwall der Stimmen gegen Einwanderer, sowohl in den USA als auch in Europa, sowie eine Zunahme der Gewalt gegen Flüchtlinge führte.

Wie auch immer, auch wenn die Entmenschlichung der erste Schritt ist, um den Hass und die Verfolgung von Randgruppen zu eskalieren, kann der psychologische Vorgang schon durch Erkennung der Menschlichkeit   Anderer umgekehrt werden. Die Tempelhofer Geschichten zielen darauf ab, die wachsende Kultur der Angst vor Flüchtlingen und Migranten in den USA in Frage zu stellen, indem sie Empathie schaffen und unsere Gemeinsamkeiten unterstreichen.