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.
September 2016
Vehicle registration plate (Illinois) from the year 1963
Historical Context
In the USA, each state issues its own vehicle registration plates. At the top edge of each plate is the name of the issuing state and the year of validity, in this case: Illinois, 1963. At the bottom edge is the state’s ‘motto’, here: ‘Land of Lincoln’ – ‘Lincoln’s Land’. The US state of Illinois bears this nickname because the later 16th US President Abraham Lincoln lived here since 1830 – and after his assassination, he also found his final resting place in the capital Springfield.
Short biography
Rita Bendler was born in 1957 as the only child of Ursula and Günter Matschke in Berlin. Her parents love to travel. However, the developments in Germany increasingly trouble both of them. The order situation for father Günter, a toolmaker, is poor. In 1961, the building of the Wall begins, and their hometown is thereafter divided. In 1962, they decide to emigrate to the USA. A sister of mother Ursula had already undertaken this successfully a few years earlier and promises support. The Matschke family travels from Bremerhaven to New York on the ‘Bremen’ and then continues by train to Chicago. For four-year-old Rita, everything is exciting; she quickly adjusts to life in America and finds new friends in kindergarten. Mother Ursula, on the other hand, struggles to find work as she speaks little English. The job as a saleswoman that she eventually takes on does not fulfill her. So, in her free time, she gets involved with the German club ‘Berliner Bären’. She edits the club’s newspaper, organizes festivals and events, and meets new acquaintances – yet she still feels uncomfortable in America. When her father falls ill with lung cancer in Germany, the family returns in 1966. For nine-year-old Rita, this is a consequential decision: she has to leave her friends in Chicago and struggles to settle into the small village near Braunschweig where her parents move with her. After school, she studies art history in Göttingen, where she meets her husband Thilo, who also lived in the USA for some time. Today, Rita and her husband ‘commute between worlds’ – heartfelt connections draw the couple back to the USA every six months.
Meaning of the object
The vehicle registration plate from Illinois is an everyday object from 1963. Its significance as a migration history museum artifact is explained as a piece of memory: The license plate belonged to the first family car in the USA, a blue VW Beetle, of which Rita’s parents were proud, and it serves as a childhood memory of a country she still feels connected to today. On the other hand, it stands as a representative testament to the motivation of many emigrants: the search for work and a better livelihood, often manifested in the acquisition of a personal vehicle as a symbol of economic status. Additionally, American cars and highways still symbolize freedom, something many equate with the USA.
Do 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