Lutz Jäkel

Over fifty years of dictatorship. Fourteen years of war, destruction, flight and fear. This is Syria. Millions of people have been driven from their homes, hundreds of thousands have lost their lives. And now - a new beginning? The regime has fallen, the dictator himself has become a refugee. For the first time, the
Syrians are experiencing something they did not know: Room for questions. Room for hope. A free Syria?
Lutz Jäkel, photojournalist and author, has known Syria for over thirty years, both up close and from afar. He has lived in Damascus, traveled the country many times, made friends, learned to love the Syria of the people, not the Syria of power. He had to stay away for fourteen years because of the war. For him, Syria seemed lost, the revolution of 2011 a failure. Or so many thought.
Then, suddenly, the turning point. The regime falls. And just a few days later, Lutz Jäkel sets off, returning to the battered country. He meets up with old acquaintances, long-time friends. Like Amer, whom he embraces again after several years and who was arrested and imprisoned by the secret service in 2024. There is also the human rights lawyer Nahla Osman, who travels to her parents' country after a long time and can finally eat ice cream again in the famous Bakdash ice cream parlor.
But there are also harrowing stories. Zubaida Lutz, for example, shows the place where she lost her husband in a massacre in 2012; now she hopes for justice. Just like Hazaa, who stands in front of the ruins of his house in Homs and only wants one thing: to live. In the notorious Sednaya torture prison, Abdulhamid holds up a photo of his son, who has been missing for years; Abdulhamid does not know exactly where he is or whether he is still alive. An HTS fighter takes Lutz to a drug factory and lets millions of pills trickle out of boxes. The Assad regime had used them to enrich itself and finance the war.
The return to Syria is the Middle East expert's most personal journey. A search for clues in a country torn apart, but not lost. A look at a Syria between yesterday and tomorrow. Between ruins and new paths. The wounds of the past are deep, the future is uncertain, but the people cling to the hope that things can only get better without the brutal Assad dictatorship.
After the great success of his first live reportage about Syria before the war, Lutz Jäkel's new live reportage is a journalistic protocol, an emotional look at a country in upheaval, at Syria and its people after the war and the dictatorship. Where the silence ends after decades of fear.
At the El Mundo Lecture Festival 2025, the renowned competition festival in Austria, "The New Syria" won 2nd place in the "Best Lecture" category.