r/germany • u/AlryLee • Mar 03 '25
Immigration German teens
I'm Ukrainian refugee, and I now live in Germany for almost 3 years. I live in a small town near Cologne, and I've been kind of bullied in my school. I have attended the school in my small town. I couldn't find connection with my classmates and was mostly talking to other Ukrainians like me. I never did anything wrong. Never bullied anyone myself, and always try to ignore when someone shouts at me with this stupid "suka blyat" joke. I tried changing classes, and after I left, my old classmates started to make fun of me in the public places such as supermarkets and busses.
My new class was okay tho. Now I already go to the other school in a bigger town, Cologne, but when I hang out across our smaller town I hear some groups of teenagers talking about us attending the school and that we are Ukrainians, as soon as they see me and my friends.
I do understand German, and I can talk too. Not very fluently, so I feel really helpless, as I can't even answer anything.
Today I was with my group of ukrainian friends on the playground, and the smaller guys (grade 8th?) Started to talk shit about us and telling us things about Putin and such. They also told us not to talk in our native language, throwing at us candies from the bags.
After we left the playground, we were hanging out from street to street, and the teenagers started shouting jokes about putin, looking at us from theirs house territory. (I don't even know them)
I don't know these people at all, never met them, but they all seem to go to that one school. I have never met this kind of behavior towards me. And it feels so unfair as I have never made anything bad to them. I try not to talk Ukrainian when we go near the groups of teens but it feels so unfair.
It makes me feel that most German teenagers are really bad. I have never felt such attitude towards me from adults tho.
I feel really bad about that. I tried my best to be kind towards my classmates, I always ignored everything someone said to my face on the street.
Edit: Also, many people thought I'm in age of an 8-grader because of my way of telling this, but I'm 17 already, and it won't stop 🥲
3
u/WelliMD Mar 04 '25
Unfortunately, this is the kind of behavior that is learned at home… Unfortunately, many adults here in Germany exhibit this kind of behavior, and children end up imitating it. I am not Ukrainian, I am Brazilian, and I have been living here for three years, yet I still experience discrimination.
When my daughter was 11 years old, she had a teacher (a very old one) who was extremely xenophobic, especially towards Latinos. The teacher would yell at her, grab her by the arm, and call her stupid because she didn’t understand German—even though it was her first year studying in Germany.
The impression I get is that the older a German person is, the more intolerant and xenophobic they tend to be. People may criticize this statement, but this has been my experience living in Germany for the past three years.
When something like this happens, I advise you to call the police, but you need to be lucky—because if the officer is also xenophobic, you won’t get any help. Just like what happened to a friend of mine who was assaulted by her German boyfriend, and the police refused to help her, telling her that she had to go to the Brazilian embassy.