Review of We Children from Bahnhof Zoo

I read the book at least 5 times, saw the film at least 3 times and was shocked every time. That's exactly why I've been looking forward to the series for over a year. My expectations weren't high, but what I saw here made me angry. Angry because it had so much potential. With 8 hours you could have achieved so much, but the only thing the film communicated to me was "everything wasn't that bad". Here I describe a few examples why (Spoilers!)

• The best example is probably Axel: He was addicted to heroin from episode 1, but also did his apprenticeship at the same time. He worked there for the whole series (until his death) and even received the certificate, even though he was addicted to heroin. This gives the impression: Even if you are a drug addict, you can still achieve a lot. And that is wrong - in the book everyone quit the job and did child prostitution because they had no more time for work or school. His death came as a surprise because you couldn't tell that he was so exhausted from heroin. He looked fine and good. Same with Matze - in the last scene before his death he looked like he came straight from the hairdresser. You did NOT see that they were close to death at all.

• The happy child prostitution montage just left a big question mark. "Let's show them how to do it" says Stella and happily the three girls go to the cars and look forward (???) to drive away with the men. In no scene you can see that the children are disgusted by what they have to do for the money. You can not tell that they only do it because they need money for H. It almost looks like they see it as a good job opportunity to do for the rest of their lives. (For example Stella at the end.)

• The whole withdrawal (I hope that is the correct word for "Entzug" in English) was just a joke. I feel worse with the flu than what they showed. Hanging a little bit over the toilet, sweating for a few hours and lying in bed all day. Finished? Exactly here you could have shown that if you want to realize your dreams, you must get through a lot of pain. And not just for a few days. But for months and years.

• In the end, Christiane moves to her grandma to get away from the tough drug scene in Berlin. In the book, however, she relapses very often with, for example, alcohol, and even in the film there is a short final scene where Christiane says that although she no longer lives in Berlin, she is still afraid of it and only very few manage to get away from it (at least from H). The series describes the ending with the song "The Dog days are over" by Florence + the Machine. Christiane is happy without drugs; her new life can begin - the real Christiane says about this in her autobiography "My Second Life" from 2013: "I was convinced that I would no longer relapse. But the blackest chapter of my life was still ahead of me." So again, here the series could have shown that she still has to struggle after all these years. That drugs (especially H) is not a weekend drug that you can take whenever you want and when you want to stop, you just stop and live your life how you want. That is NOT the reality.

Conclusion: It's a shame that the series didn't dare to show the negative side more. By that I mean the harsh truth and seeing disgusting pictures. Everything is polished up. Only from episode 7 (it has 8 episodes) on, it does get a little less gloomy, but it still doesn't leave you with the feeling you had with the book or the film back then. No, quite the reverse! The series kind of left me hopeful and like I wrote before, everything seems not as bad as you think of drugs. And I really hope that this was not the intention of the writers. Because if I would not have read the book or saw the movie, I would not think that H would ruin your life for ever.