Objekt des Monats
Jedes Objekt in der Sammlung des Deutschen Auswandererhauses erzählt eine ganz persönliche Auswanderungs- oder Einwanderungsgeschichte. In dieser Rubrik stellen wir Ihnen jeden Monat ein anderes Objekt vor – eine Fotografie, ein Dokument oder ein persönliches Erinnerungsstück.
June 2020
Baptismal certificate of Ebeling Johannes Veenhuis from 1931
Baptismal certificate dated January 15, 1931, in Jamaica, Queens County, New York; on the occasion of the ‘Global Days of Parents’, World Parents’ Day on June 1.
Historical Context
This baptismal certificate from 1931 was issued at Grace Lutheran Church in the city of Jamaica, New York. Eleven years prior, the church was founded by Germans. Nevertheless, the language of the baptismal certificate is English. Until the end of the 19th century, this was unusual for German immigrants: Besides German schools, there were also many churches where services were held in German. With the increasingly overt displays of power ambitions by the newly founded German Empire, tensions grew between Americans and Germans. At the latest, with the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the U.S. entering the war in 1917, German ‘hyphen-Americans’ had to decide: Germany or America. German schools and churches decreased, and English became the primary language even among German immigrants.
Short Biography Ebeling Johannes Veenhuis
Ebeling Johannes Veenhuis is born on December 29, 1929, in the USA. His parents had migrated there from Germany the same year. The early days during the Great Depression are tough for the young parents. They work in a hotel operated by a German family. There’s hardly enough to live on for the small family. Soon after his baptism in 1931, the barely two-year-old American citizen Johannes is brought back to Germany by his parents due to economic difficulties, where he grows up with his aunt and uncle in Papenburg. In 1947, at the age of eighteen, Johannes goes to the USA at the urging of his grandfather – to his parents. However, they are almost strangers to him. Although they had regularly sent packages from the USA, he hadn’t seen them personally since 1931. In America, Johannes first works as a gardener, his trained profession. As an American citizen, he is subject to the draft and is enlisted at the age of 21, sent to Germany as a soldier. In 1952, he meets Hanna at a dance there. For love, Johannes requests his discharge from the Army in 1953 and stays in Germany. He never felt truly at home in the USA. In the same year, his parents return from the USA and open a tavern in Zetel. Johannes and Hanna also move there after their wedding in 1957. Hanna opens a grocery store there and later they take over the parents’ tavern. Ebeling Johannes Veenhuis passes away in Germany in 2012.
Meaning of the object
The parents of Ebeling Johannes Veenhuis had to make the difficult decision to separate from their son and place him in the care of their German relatives to enable him to grow up in a secure economic environment. To this day, families live separated because one or both parents work abroad. The United Nations (UN) declared a global day in honor of parents in 2012 through a UN resolution: June 1st is the ‘Global Day of Parents,’ a day to honor parents and acknowledge their dedication, sacrifice, and care for their children.
Do you also …
… have a migration or immigration story from your family that you would like to share, along with the associated objects and documents, with the Deutsches Auswandererhaus for its collection? If so, please contact Dr. Tanja Fittkau at the phone number 0471 / 90 22 0 – 0 or via email at: t.fittkau@dah-bremerhaven.de
Archive: Previous Objects of the Month
Show all objectsDo You Also Have …
… a story of emigration or immigration in your family that you would like to share with the German Emigration Center together with the related objects and documents for its collection? Then please contact Dr. Tanja Fittkau by phone at +49 471 / 90 22 0 – 0
or by e-mail at: t.fittkau@dah-bremerhaven.de