Syrians in Germany hopeful for their homeland but divided on returning

Nawa Sweets is a small sweet shop in Munich, but this week it's been livelier than usual. As a regular destination for the expatriate Syrian community, it has hosted impromptu celebrations since last weekend's sudden power shift in Damascus.

"We are very happy," owner Mohamed Leid tells CGTN, among large colorful platters of baklava and knafeh. "For the past days we have been celebrating with everyone. On Saturday, Sunday it was madness here, like a festival."

Gatherings and celebrations have continued amongst the Syrian population in the southern German city, which back in 2015/2016 was a main point of entry into the country for thousands of refugees – mostly Syrians.

Nawa employee Abdul Rahman Shatrawi, a former soldier who defected from the Syrian army when civil war broke out in 2011, broke down in tears describing the devastation back home over the past 13 years.

"We don't know where Syria is going now," he says. "Right now, we just care that we got rid of injustice. We used to live like animals. But now you see people talking and you can see joy in their eyes. Now we feel like living human beings."

Where Syria is going – and accountability – is what many Syrians are discussing now, says Mohamed Tepesa, the owner of the Al Baraka restaurant near Munich's main train station.

"It won't be easy for people to recover from this," he says, sipping his small paper cup full of rich arabic coffee. "People have freedom now, but they don't have their dignity yet. "

Many of the Syrians CGTN spoke with on the streets of Munich are reluctant to go back home… just yet at least. They are well aware that the country and the lives they left behind will not be the same.

Germany has taken in more Syrians than any other EU country since former chancellor Angela Merkel opened the borders in 2015; official figures total around 975,000 Syrian nationals living in the country. But acceptance of them has waned amongst the German population.

While many Syrians have learned the language and have taken advantage of the many different government-sponsored training and educational programs offered to them, Berlin is debating what to do with them now.

Two months before federal elections in Germany, the country's main opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union, is calling for federal support to charter planes and provide willing Syrians with $1,000 to get them back on their feet in Syria.

But all three parties in the ruling coalition are urging patience. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says Germany and its partners would make their contribution to stabilizing the country first, based on the UN resolutions on Syria.

Meanwhile, the Syrians they're discussing also have mixed views on the topic of returning. 

"Of course we will all visit our country," says restaurateur Tapesa, "but it's a much different place now."

And that's exactly why Shatrawi, the former soldier, believes now is the time to go back. "The air you breathe in your own home, you won't breathe it anywhere else," he says. "We have to go back and reconstruct Syria."