Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel visits the DAH
Federal Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel
visiting the German Emigration Center
A few weeks ago, Dr. Angela Merkel began a series of farewell trips as she concludes her chancellorship and reflects on her term. At her personal request, she visited the German Emigration Center Bremerhaven today, Thursday, November 4, 2021, making it the only stop in the state of Bremen. Museum Director Dr. Simone Blaschka and the architect of the building, Andreas Heller, guided her along with the President of the Bremen Senate, Dr. Andreas Bovenschulte, and Bremerhaven’s Mayor Melf Grantz through the recently renovated and expanded exhibition of the migration museum.
With great interest in personal mementos from immigrants: Federal Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel in conversation with Museum Director Dr. Simone Blaschka, alongside (from left to right) the President of the Bremen Senate, Dr. Andreas Bovenschulte, architect Andreas Heller, and Bremerhaven’s Mayor Melf Grantz.
Even though the doors of the German Emigration Center opened only for invited guests and under strict security measures on this Thursday morning, a large group of curious onlookers had gathered in front of the migration museum: Relatively short notice, depending on the current Corona situation, the outgoing Federal Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel had chosen the museum as a central station for her likely last official visit in the state of Bremen.
After brief visits in 2009 and 2014, the Chancellor was given an in-depth tour of the exhibition by museum director Dr. Simone Blaschka and architect Andreas Heller in a smaller group. She showed great interest in historical developments and the interactive installations, as well as the new digital thinking spaces that encourage visitors to actively ask questions, reflect, and vote, along with the personal memorabilia and artworks of the migrants as she walked through both the emigration and new immigration sections of the Deutsches Auswandererhaus.
In the ‘Forum Migration’: (from left to right) Bremerhaven’s mayor Melf Grantz, President of the Bremen Senate Dr. Andreas Bovenschulte, Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel, museum director Dr. Simone Blaschka, architect Andreas Heller.
Thanking for the visit to the ‘moving’ exhibition, the Chancellor concluded at the subsequent press conference in the foyer of the Deutsches Auswandererhaus: ‘You bring each individual person to the forefront, and that is exactly how we should engage with the topics of flight, displacement, and migration. It’s about people. It’s not the Germans who emigrated, and it’s not the Syrians or Afghans who are coming; it is always individual people.’
Simone Blaschka expressed her gratitude for the visit, along with her team, who were pleased to welcome the Chancellor: ‘It is important to us to make migration visible as a normal everyday part of history and present, and we thank the Chancellor for the recognition our house and our work received through her visit.’