Hasthi sits in the clouds.

She actually only sits on the first floor, but this winter's day is hazy, and through the window not much more of the small town in North Rhine-Westphalia can be seen than cloudy fog.

Hasthi, whose real name is different, is sitting up here in her new room, which she only occupies temporarily.

It's very warm, the heating is on full blast, which is perhaps how it should be in a room with nothing but a narrow metal bed, a desk and a locker.

The room next door is empty;

at least there are carpets on the gray floor and cushions to sit on.

Johanna Dürrholz

Editor at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin

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Four weeks ago, Hasthi was already in the clouds on a plane from Kabul to Pakistan.

From there Hasthi, her mother and her three younger siblings flew to Leipzig a few days later.

She remembers well the moment when the plane actually took off from Kabul, towards the clouds and towards freedom.

"It was the first time that I could believe: We really made it."

Education is the enemy of their ideology

Most people in Kabul are scared right now, says Hasthi, but it's particularly dangerous for someone like her: a woman, a student, worked for an organization that campaigns for women's rights.

When Kabul fell and the Taliban took power, Hasthi and her colleagues did what many women did: they destroyed everything that indicated their work.

All traces of its decades of use have been erased and the website has been taken offline.

Some women burned all the documents that proved that they had studied: reports, theses, certificates.

They destroyed their academic existence, part of their identity.

Men also burned their university papers, because having a degree can be dangerous under the Taliban: education is the enemy of their ideology.

When Hasthi was born in Afghanistan 25 years ago, the Taliban were already in power and spreading fear.

Hasthi was still young when her parents fled to Pakistan with her.

"Life wasn't easy for refugees," she says.

"But I didn't realize that as a kid.

It was hard for my parents.” Hasthi finished school, but studying in Pakistan was out of the question: As an Afghan, she didn't have the documents and money for a private university.

"As a woman you are not safe in Afghanistan"

She went to Kabul alone at the age of 18 to apply for university.

She slept in a hostel full of freshmen and shared a room with seven other women.

They studied all night long for their entrance exams, they had to master all the material of the upper school.

Hasthi was accepted at Kabul State University.

And she got a scholarship to the American University in the Afghan capital.

“The courses at one university were in the mornings, those at the other in the evenings, fortunately.” So Hasthi studied two subjects: biotechnology in the morning and management in the evening.

At some point her family followed, the younger siblings, Hasthi has two sisters and a brother, should also study.

Hasthi was able to move out of the hostel.