Nasser Trabulsi, a fifty-eight-year-old photojournalist who once documented presidents and terrorist attacks in his native Lebanon, has found an unexpected second home in the small German town of Erndtebrück after fleeing threats against his life in 2017. Trabulsi, his wife Rania, and their two children Jad and Lyn escaped Beirut that October, eventually settling in the Wittgenstein region of North Rhine-Westphalia in February 2018, where he now works regularly for the Siegener Zeitung newspaper. In a year-end interview reflecting on his journey, Trabulsi described his experience using three words: concerned, confident, and happy, capturing the complex emotional landscape of a refugee rebuilding his career and identity.
Trabulsi's passion for photography began when he was just twelve or thirteen years old, eventually leading to a professional career in Beirut where he worked in a laboratory and daily shot assignments throughout the city, initially using black-and-white film. His talent earned him a first prize in a Reuters photography competition for an image of a firefighting operation in Beirut, which opened doors to a major newspaper position and later assignments covering high-level football matches. Throughout his career, he photographed presidents, heads of state, parliamentary sessions, and the aftermath of assassinations and demonstrations, including the devastating 2005 bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and ISIS attacks that claimed the lives of many colleagues.
The decision to flee came after direct threats due to his press work, forcing the family to leave everything behind for a month-long stay in Essen-Overhammshof before relocating to Neuss, where their first Christmas and New Year without relatives and friends felt catastrophic. When authorities suggested Erndtebrück as their next destination, the family researched the town on Google before arriving to find deep snow and temperatures of negative eighteen degrees Celsius. The transition proved difficult until they met Christa Guardia exactly one year and eleven days later, an encounter Trabulsi describes as 'love at first sight' that resulted in them moving in with her immediately, fundamentally changing their integration experience.
The contrast between his former and current assignments could not be starker, as Trabulsi now spends afternoons rushing between four or five football matches across the Wittgenstein region, from Diedenshausen to Hesselbach, requiring meticulous planning but allowing him to contribute more extensively to community coverage. While he once captured weapons deliveries to the Lebanese army and the 2020 Beirut explosion that destroyed his former office building, today he finds joy in discovering local culture through events like KulturPur and the Altenkirchen carnival. His limited free time for private photography is spent appreciating the local landscape when his family is available, maintaining his lifelong commitment to learning and visual storytelling.
Integration has brought both challenges and profound connections, as Trabulsi acknowledges that bureaucratic obstacles and prejudice against refugees who are not differentiated by individual circumstances make life difficult. However, he credits Christa with acting as a 'navigation device' and emphasizes that they have met many good and loving people, building their own circle of friends and acquaintances. Despite the hardships, Trabulsi remains resolute, stating simply, 'I keep going, always keep going,' a mantra that has carried him from war zone photography to documenting small-town German life.
Today, Trabulsi's family has established firm roots, with his twenty-one-year-old son studying in Bonn and his sixteen-year-old daughter preparing to transfer to gymnasium after both secured permanent residency permits, while his wife works in a local elementary school. His dream of permanent employment at the newspaper represents the final piece of their new life, though he continues working as a freelance photographer. As he looks toward the future, Trabulsi wishes for peace in Lebanon, peace for the whole world, and peace for all people, reflecting a hard-won perspective that values stability after witnessing decades of conflict through his camera lens.
