Faced with increasing unemployment in Greece, bright and educated young Greeks are now fleeing to Germany by the thousands in the hope of finding work and setting up a new life for themselves. However, once there, many struggle to find jobs, especially if they don't speak the German language.
In October 2011, when the German parliament, the Bundestag, approved additional billions in aid for Greece and other European Union countries, Thalia Paraskeva, 24, decided to leave her homeland. She packed warm boots, a few dresses, a jacket -- and a Greek-German dictionary. For months, the newspapers in Athens had printed cartoons depicting the Germans as Nazis, concentration camp guards and euro-zone imperialists who allow their debtors to bleed to death. But Paraskeva's friends and relatives told a different story. They raved about a country where there was work for everyone who wanted to work. They told her about the uncles and aunts who had left Greece for "Germania" after the war and found happiness there. Most of all, however, they raved about Berlin.
Paraskeva had received a degree in graphic design in Athens. But then the crisis arrived, and no one wanted to hire her. She waited tables and earned a little money with odd jobs, until even those jobs fizzled out. Anything is better than Athens, she thought, and booked a ticket to Berlin.
Read more - Spiegel online
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