#3 Silence

Turkey earthquake 2023: how a bereaved man is fighting for justice

A man loses his grandmother when a hospital building collapses in the earthquake – and takes up the fight against those responsible.

Silence

‘I don’t look for silence – and yet it’s everywhere’

A young photographer drifts through the city and discovers quiet places that hardly anyone sees.

A car park on the former Expo site in Hannover. A single car is parked in this deserted car park next to one of the many pavilions. The pavilion’s façade is covered in red tiles, and a tree stands in the background.

Silence

Peatland protection: why bogs are among our most important climate savers

From carbon store to political issue: why wet soils matter so much for the climate – and four people who are fighting for them.

Silence

‘We want to give dying a place of the greatest possible security’

At Hospiz Luise in Hannover, carers accompany people on their final journey – and turn fear into a sense of safety.

Silence

What is silence? Ten people, ten answers

Ten very different lives, one question – captured in short, powerful video portraits.

Silence

Groundhog Day for the humble sandwich: a homage

Simple, familiar, underrated: a photographic declaration of love to the simplest meal of the day.

Silence

Between silence and storm surge: a hermit on the Hallig

Nick, 48, from Berlin has swapped his old life for solitude off the coast of North Frisia. A visit.

Silence

Seven days of silence: a self-experiment in a silent retreat

A week without a single word: what it feels like to fall completely silent – and where your own limits lie.

Reddish plastic flowers are tangled in front of a young woman’s face, symbolising a restless mind.

Silence

Toxic silence: when silence becomes torture

No word, no explanation, no look: how deliberately ignoring someone hurts – and leaves its mark on many people from childhood.

A little girl sits on her bed with her face in her hands, clearly distressed. The room is decorated with a mural of ducks and fish. The scene illustrates the idea of toxic silence, in which emotional harm is caused by ignoring or shutting someone out.

Silence

Shopping with autism: too bright, too loud, too much

Glaring lights, flashing adverts, a babble of voices: for our author, the supermarket regularly becomes an ordeal.

A woman shopping in dimmed light at the Edeka supermarket at Herrenhäuser Markt in Hannover

Silence

Sign language: the silent language of deaf people

Deaf, but not mute: how deaf people communicate in a loud world – and what hearing people hardly know about it.

Silence

No place to retreat: why refugee shelters lack silence

Constant noise, no room of one’s own: how life in collective shelters wears people down – as told by a refugee from Ukraine.

Silence is rarely just quiet. It can be a refuge or become torment. Our third focus topic listens closely.

A self-experiment lasts seven days – without a single word. A hermit lives between silence and storm surge. Autistic people explain why the supermarket is too bright and too loud for them, and one story introduces sign language as the silent language of Deaf people.

Silence also has a harsh side: in accommodation for refugees, where there is no place to retreat to, or as toxic silence that turns into torment.

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