Abstract
Immigration museums were invented, took root and proliferated across Australia (1986), the United States (1990) and Canada (1999)—three English settler societies, which in the twentieth century, morphed into multicultural democracies. Yet, in Europe, immigration museums have not been as widespread, with museums opened in Denmark (1997), the United Kingdom (2000), Spain, Sweden and France (2007). In Germany, while discussions and debates around the need for a national migration museum began with exhibitions mounted in Essen and Cologne in the late 1990s, and subsequent years have seen a series of major exhibits about migration, no plans to build a national immigration museum have emerged.
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Notes
- 1.
www.domid.org.seiten/ausstellungen/fremde_heimat_essen-en.html. Accessed April 5, 2011.
- 2.
Until 2004, the Federal Republic of Germany, relying on the Civil Code of 1913, based citizenship on ancestry—jus sanguinis—and insisted that it was not a country of immigration, despite the fact that, by 2004, some 20 million newcomers (since 1945) had settled in the country. The new citizenship law, which came into effect on January 1, 2005, recognizes and regulates immigration, affirming that foreigners who are admitted can become citizens, rather than only being allowed to work or to stay in Germany on a (precarious) temporary basis.
- 3.
MAN (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg) is one of Germany’s major mechanical engineering firms. Its many products include parts for trucks, buses, and ships, and other key industries as well.
- 4.
The major sponsors were the Kölnischer Kunstverein (Art Society of Cologne), DOMID (Dokumentazionszentrum und Museum über Migration in Deutschland—Documentation Centre and Museum of Migration in Germany), the Institut für Kulturanthropologie und Europäische Ethnologie der Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt/Main (Institute for Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt Main), and the Institut für Theorie der Gestaltung und Kunst ICS/HGK Zurich (Institute for Theory of Creativity and Art, Zurich).
- 5.
These sites include the Art Society of Cologne, Rudolfplatz/Hohentor, the Crowne Plaza, Friesenplatz/Hohenzollernring, Hohenzollernbrücke am Dom.
- 6.
Both Mandel and Mushaben discuss how the older generation of Turks identify with Jews, but younger Turks identify with blacks.
- 7.
Ballinstadt, or Ballin’s city, was named after Alfred Ballin, the General Director of the Ballin shipping company, to service the passengers who converged on Hamburg from Germany and Eastern Europe to board ships for North and South America.
- 8.
These included: Generali Versicherungen, Loden-Frey, Bezirk Oberbayern, Olympia Park München, Hochtief Construction, Radio Bayern 2, and the Süddeutsche Zeitung, among others. See www.crossingmunich.org/partner-und-sponsoren.html. Accessed April 10, 2011.
- 9.
The German Historical Museum (in Berlin) and the House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany (in Bonn).
- 10.
This is an ad hoc category, originally created to facilitate the admission of Vietnamese refugees (‘boat people’) in 1980.
- 11.
Brumlik outlines the waves of Jews who arrived in the Federal Republic of Germany from DP camps and from many countries, including Hungary after the 1956 uprising, Czechoslovakia in the aftermath of the Prague Spring of 1968, and Poland. He also discusses the inner conflicts and the myth of living “with packed suitcases” that informed the daily life of Jews in Germany in the postwar years. In 2003, the Journal of East European Jewish Affairs published a special issue (vol. 33, no. 2 [Winter 2003], guest editor: Robin Ostow), devoted to the dynamics of post-Soviet Jewish immigration to Germany.
- 12.
Michael Fehr, “Überlegungen zu einem “Migration Museum’ in der Bundesrepublik.”
www.keom02.de/Texte.Fehr/Migrationsmuseum.pdf. Accessed April 10, 2011.
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Ostow, R. (2014). Exhibiting Migration Stories in Germany: Histories, Heritage, Contact Zones and Immigration Country. In: Walton-Roberts, M., Hennebry, J. (eds) Territoriality and Migration in the E.U. Neighbourhood. International Perspectives on Migration, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6745-4_10
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