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SZ article (excerpt, translated)

“With the democracy initiative “pics4peace”, which she founded, and supported by an alliance of city and cultural institutions, she has initiated the voluntary project #endlichankommen. Finally arriving means: as a person with a history of migration in Germany, as a newcomer to Würzburg, as a person in life. As part of this project, Beckmann and co-initiator Thomas Kirchberg want to conduct 1000 interviews with people from Würzburg for a podcast series called “1000 experiences” over the course of a year. Two episodes are to be published every week on all common platforms, with QR codes throughout the city to guide you to them. The interviews may later be scientifically analyzed.

And why all the effort? “Understanding and being understood is key,” says Beckmann on the phone. In the surveys, people can say “what really moves them”. Some of the topics are “tough. But people are grateful that they have spoken out.” It is often about migration, and surprisingly often people from countries such as Syria, Eritrea and Russia who have been living here for a long time and demand “much stricter intervention”, as Beckmann says.

She and Kirchberg ask their interviewees 20 standardized questions, for example: Where were your grandparents born, where did you live? Which food do you have the fondest memories of? Or: What are your biggest fears and worries? What do you think about integration? They have already conducted 60 interviews, including with Russian-German ethnic German repatriates in the rather structurally weak Würzburg district of Heuchelhof and with refugees.”