A better life?
A better life?
Jakob Berr
July 21, 2014
Despite all the noise at the Munich airport, Nikola tries to sleep while Sakis and Albena go to collect bottles.
The 40 year-old Sakis from Thessaloniki in Greece left his home in 2008 at the beginning of the financial crisis, and headed to Germany to find a better life. His 37 year-old girlfriend, Albena from Bulgaria, accompanied him. Albena's son Nikola, ten years old at the time, went to his grandmother in Bulgaria.
Since their arrival in Germany, Sakis and Albena get by on casual jobs, which each last only a few weeks. So far they have been unable to get permanent work or even an apartment. Because of the lack of alternatives, they keep on returning to Munich airport, where they live till they get their next job, feeding themselves by collecting bottles.
On October 18, 2012, they were joined in Munich by Nikola, then 15, as his grandmother could no longer afford to look after him.
The 40 year-old Sakis from Thessaloniki in Greece left his home in 2008 at the beginning of the financial crisis, and headed to Germany to find a better life. His 37 year-old girlfriend, Albena from Bulgaria, accompanied him. Albena's son Nikola, ten years old at the time, went to his grandmother in Bulgaria.
Since their arrival in Germany, Sakis and Albena get by on casual jobs, which each last only a few weeks. So far they have been unable to get permanent work or even an apartment. Because of the lack of alternatives, they keep on returning to Munich airport, where they live till they get their next job, feeding themselves by collecting bottles.
On October 18, 2012, they were joined in Munich by Nikola, then 15, as his grandmother could no longer afford to look after him.
Jakob Berr+-
Born and brought up in Abensberg, Lower Bavaria, Jakob Berr completed his degree in photo design at secondary school in Munich in 2007. After studying photo journalism and reportage photography in Hanover for one year, he moved to the United States. In 2010, thanks to a Fulbright Scholarship, Berr was able to complete his Master of Arts in Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism. Since 2013 he has been working as photo editor for the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. More