DEUTSCHES KULTURFORUM
ÖSTLICHES EUROPA
***
OFF TO SEA!
German-speaking Emigration from Eastern
Europe around 1900 - Issued by the
German Cultural Forum for Central and
Eastern Europe
© 2019 Deutsches Kulturforum östliches Europa
Verlag und Druck: tredition GmbH, Halenreie 40-44, 22359 Hamburg
| ISBN | |
| e-Book: | 978-3-7497-9851-3 |
Das Werk, einschließlich seiner Teile, ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages und des Autors unzulässig. Dies gilt insbesondere für die elektronische oder sonstige Vervielfältigung, Übersetzung, Verbreitung und öffentliche Zugänglichmachung.
Off to Sea!
German-speaking Emigration from Eastern Europe around 1900
Issued by the German Cultural Forum for Central and Eastern Europe
Translated from the German by Sheila Brain
Cover-illustration: The Snow Township Baseball Team, McLean County, North Dacota
We acknowledge our thanks to all the archive-holders, institutions, private persons who have made material available for our use. Persons or institutions that claim rights on illustrations are requested to contact the German Cultural Forum for Central and Eastern Europe.
© 2015 by Deutsches Kulturforum östliches Europa for the German book edition Nach Übersee.
Deutschsprachige Auswanderer aus dem östlichen Europa um 1900
© 2019 for the English E-Book
Deutsches Kulturforum östliches Europa
Berliner Str. 135
D–14467 Potsdam
www.kulturforum.info
The German Cultural Forum for Central and Eastern Europe is committed to a sophisticated and forward-looking debate on the history of those areas of Eastern Europe where Germans used to, or still live. The Forum organizes discussions, readings, exhibitions, concerts, prize-givings and conferences. It publishes non-fiction, cultural travel guides, readers and coffee-table books in The Potsdam Eastern Europe Series.
All rights reserved.
Editor: Ariane Afsari
English translation by: Sheila Brain
Reader of the English translation: Jennifer St. Thomas, Ariane
Afsari, all authors
Design: Hana Kathrin Stockhausen
Layout, e-book-production: Sabine Abels, Hamburg, www.ebook-erstellung.de
Made in Germany.
ISBN 978-3-936168-80-8
Contents
Introduction: Europe as a continent of migration
Jochen Oltmer
From Klemzig to Klemzig: The first Prussian settlers in South Australia
Anitta Maksymowicz
19th Century migrants to New Zealand from Bohemia, and their descendants
Wilfried Heller
Overseas emigration from Bukovina
Halrun Reinholz
Galician Jews on the journey to New York
Klaus Hödl
From neighborly support to the insurance business: Transylvanian Saxons in the USA
Harald Roth
The Germans from Russia in the Americas: A Story of Retention and Transformation
Eric J. Schmaltz
“Plautdietsch” speaking Mennonites
Göz Kaufmann
Russian-German Songs of Emigration: From Record of History to Cultural Memory
Ingrid Bertleff
“Those who have abandoned their homeland” – Places where emigration history can be experienced.
Wolfgang Grams
Ellis Island – Migration to a Museum
Tobias Weger
Index of References
Index of Names
Index of Places
Models of small boats used on the river Oder, loan of the city museum of Neusalz/Nowa Sól
Introduction: Europe as a continent of migration
Jochen Oltmer
Human history is a history of migration. Since pre-historic ages, migrant flows of population across territories have been a central element of adapting to environmental circumstances as well as to social, economic, and political challenges. In recent centuries migration has changed the world: there are countless examples of the extent to which the composition of local populations, the development of employment markets and of cultural and religious orientations have been influenced by migrations related to employment, living conditions, flight, expulsion, or deportation. Migration is likely to remain a global topic for the future. This is made clear for example by current debates about the consequences of further growth in the world population, the ageing of societies in the rich Global North, climate change, or the shortage of skilled specialist workers for increasingly complex and tightly interconnected international knowledge-based corporations.
Migration can be understood as a long-term geographical relocation of the focal point of life for individuals, families, groups, or indeed for a whole population. Distinctions can be made between different manifestations of geographical population movements. This particularly relates to migrations for the purpose of work or resettlement, nomadic movement, migration for education, training, and cultural reasons, for marriage, for economic improvement, as well as forced migration. Disregarding forced migration for the moment (mainly flight, expulsion, and deportation), then people on the move between geographical and social locations, whether individuals, families, or groups, are mostly seeking to improve their opportunities for employment, places to settle, job markets, education, training, or marriage, or just to get a new chance in life. The decision to migrate is a result of personal choices or new arrangements in family economic situations. There may indeed be no alternative actions for individuals and families to take, especially not when there is a real threat of existential need because of economic, social, or environmental crises.
In that context belong the intercontinental migrations of the 19th and early 20th centuries, which led some 55 to 60 million Europeans to other parts of the world. The migration overseas of German-speaking settlers from eastern parts