Flight, expulsion and brutal ethnic segregation in the middle of Europe at the end of the 20th century? This was unimaginable at the beginning of the 90s. Then the shock. A state collapses. War in Yugoslavia. Hundreds of thousands of people are no longer safe where they have lived for generations, are forced to leave their homes, are being driven out because of their ethnic and religious affiliation, and many of them are being killed. However, a lack of tolerance and a lack of understanding for the supposedly foreign, ethnic hatred, merciless uprooting, and desperate homelessness have only returned to public consciousness as a result of the war in Yugoslavia. The forerunners and causes go far into the European past.

At the beginning of the 20th century: Nationalism finds its way into Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the colorful, multi-ethnic empires – the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Tsarist Empire – are heading towards their downfall. The new homogeneity postulate is: “Each ethnic and national group has its own state! No state with minorities!” Political and ethnic boundaries are being ruthlessly redrawn. The first two Balkan wars in 1912/13: Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia on the one hand and the Ottoman Empire on the other fight for Macedonia. The winners – Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia – cannot agree on how to divide the spoils. War again – and the beginning of the story of ethnic cleansing. The trail of blood and violence continues through the Greek-Turkish population exchange as a result of the Lausanne Agreement in 1923, the resettlements, expulsions and mass murders of the Second World War right up to the events of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia.

Three regions, three time periods, three times the dream of home and home without space. That’s what this film wants to show. Quiet and multi-voiced, with a calm camera and moving memories. Those who have been forcibly displaced, torn out, erased, homeless, strangers in their “own” country – there have always been and still are victims of nationalist, racist violence. Forced migration is at the same time an ongoing and recurring part of European history.

Director: John Burgan
Scrpt: John Burgan
Camera: Rainer M. Schulz
Sound: Klaus Peter Schmitt
Editing: Beate Schönefeldt
Assistent: Nina Vocilka
Production: Andrea Ufer
Co-Production: MDR
Station: MDR
Funding: Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Bundeskulturstiftung, Stiftung Mercator