“Together with my younger sister and pregnant mother we fled from Iran. I was only eleven years old but I remember everything very well. The first thing I saw when we arrived at the airport was a young couple kissing in public. Something I wasn’t used to. We were placed in a refugee center and applied for citizenship. We kept moving from one refugee center to another without any clarity about the future. That changed autumn 2005. It was six o’clock in the morning when the police woke us up. They said we had to leave the country and for the meantime we were placed in a detention center which is a fancy word for prison. The days passed by and after seven weeks they decided to review our case. When you go through something like that it’s hard to believe in the future. One year after that we got released and we received our residence permits. Slowly I started to move forward and make plans. I auditioned for the theatre school in Maastricht and surprisingly I got accepted. Even though I’m not a refugee anymore it still influences my life and also my work as an actor. For example, right now I’m working on a production called ‘Nobody Home’. The title says it all. When you are a refugee you don’t belong anywhere. ”
– Saman Amini

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This photo is a repost and a part of an upcoming “Humans of Amsterdam” Exhibition in the Public Library of Amsterdam (Near the central station). The exhibition contains photos taken in the past two years. It will be up from September until November 2015.

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