Imagine that you were forced to flee your homeland due to a sudden wave of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in 1995. You were an accomplished university professor who frequently attended international conferences and held dinner parties for your multi-cultural colleagues in Sarajevo. Married to a Muslim taken away by masked soldiers, you have seen your comfortable life destroyed by ultra-nationalists engaging in mass rape to terrify people like you into abandoning their neighbourhoods. You arrive in Germany with your two children after three weeks of trekking across mountains, grateful to have found refuge, although you cannot speak the language. For the next three years you will be required to live in an asylum hostel outside of town, sharing a room with six people. You are forbidden to work legally until your case is ‘decided’. Luckily you find a cleaning job at a local hospital, working the night shift so that you can care for your children, attending half-day German schools. They now speak better German than Bosnian, but because your country was not an EU member, you might be deported if authorities decide it is safe for you to go back.