GELSENKIRCHEN, Germany—Nearly five years ago, when Mohamad Akkour arrived in this city of 260,000 in Germany’s western Ruhr region, he was so eager to learn German that he enlisted anyone he could to help him: teachers, friends, and even strangers on the street—with whom he conducted mock interviews to practice the language and build up vocabulary. Then just 15 years old, Akkour had fled his hometown of Aleppo and made the at-times harrowing journey through Syria, Turkey, and the Balkans to reach safety in Germany.
Today, at 20, Akkour is thriving. He graduated from high school this spring and scored higher on his German exams than many of his German peers. Now, he hopes to study medicine—following in the footsteps of his older sister, who remains in Syria. And in this fall’s local elections in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Akkour ran—unsuccessfully—for a seat on Gelsenkirchen’s integration council for the center-left Social Democrats.
