Podcast tip
“bassam”
Bassam’s bloody true escape story: we should all listen to him
In six episodes, Bassam reports on his escape from the civil war in Syria, which takes him to Germany
© Tamara Göbel/Podstars by OMR
Courageous, warm-hearted and crushingly honest: In “Bassam” a Syrian boy tells the true story of his dramatic escape from the civil war and a new life in Germany.
Introduce yourself… When Bassam begins a sentence with these words, scenes follow that defy the sheer imagination. About the non-stop bombardment of his homeland, the Syrian city of Darʿā. From escaping misery into the hands of IS terrorists. Crossing the Mediterranean with empty pockets in a tug boat full of holes. His odyssey across Europe, which finally leads him to Hamburg – and thus to everyday life in Germany, at the greatest possible distance from everything he knew and knew up to now.
Imagine a 15-year-old boy who can only escape the war in his country by leaving his family behind and embarking on a life-threatening flight: This is Bassam’s story, he experienced the unimaginable. And now in “Bassam”, the first storytelling podcast from Podstars by OMR, makes it imaginable for listeners in a touching and depressing way.
“Bassam”, a unique story
The now 22-year-old is the protagonist of this damn true story, which he tells himself over six episodes and could not be more topical: Anyone can become a refugee, as the war in Ukraine once again and painfully demonstrates.
“We worked on the podcast for nine months. Never in our lives did we expect that the topics of war and displacement would be so topical at the time of the podcast’s release.”, says Tim Sohr, author and one of the speakers of the podcast. “For me as an author, it’s the first project where it’s really really important to me that it reaches as many people as possible.” For the earlier one starIt is both a task and a concern for journalists that Bassam’s story be heard. “Because history is so important, especially in these times,” he says, “but above all because Bassam deserves it.”
Familiar: Bassam (left) and author Tim Sohr
© Tim Lieberherr/Podstars by OMR
Courageous and warm-hearted, Bassam describes his story, which is one of war and expulsion, but also of departure and arrival. He says disarming sentences like: “I had a nice childhood, but not enough” or “I think there will be an even better future for me”. Sound snippets from the “Tagesschau”, the menacing roar of the Mediterranean Sea and the hissing of artillery make the listeners’ mental cinema rattle and put Bassam’s crushingly honest descriptions into a contextual framework.
It should also be thanks to the personal relationship with the author that Bassam doesn’t mince his words. “I met Bassam in January 2016 at a so-called welcome dinner,” says Sohr. “Since then I’ve been looking for a suitable format for his story over the last few years. With this podcast I finally found it because only here can we really tell the story together: together with Bassam, of course, and together with the amazing Ariana Baborie, with whom we found the perfect voice for the project.”
The result is a listening experience that negotiates a highly topical story in a stirring and touching way, inspires hope and creates a new awareness of the topic. In short: Bassam is a pleasure to listen to.
All six podcast episodes of “Bassam” you can here, at AudioNow or listen to all other common podcast platforms.