Dr. Michèlle van der Does & Rob van der Burg
“It is a great adventure for us!” This is how Michèlle van der Does and Rob van der Burg describe their experience of emigrating to Bremerhaven in 2019. Rob van der Burg was born in the small Dutch port town of Den Oever. His father is a fisherman, and his mother is a housewife. Rob has a tumultuous youth. “I was quite a rebel!” he says about himself. He works in various jobs and starts two different vocational training programs, both of which he abandons. The major turning point for him comes at the age of 19. Rob van der Burg decides to pursue training as a media designer. After his training, he studies at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and completes this with his project “Nova Eden,” which is exhibited at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven and the Salone del Mobile in Milan, among other places. Michèlle van der Does grows up in Slootdorp in the northwest of the Netherlands. Her father owns an electronics business. Her mother is a trained hairdresser but decides, when Michèlle is seven years old, to pursue a degree and becomes an elementary school teacher. Michèlle is very ambitious from a young age and studies geosciences at VU Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. For her master’s thesis, Michèlle spends a month on a research vessel in collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ). Through this cooperation, she also receives the opportunity to write a doctoral thesis on Saharan dust and its impact on the marine ecosystem, which she completes in 2018. Michèlle van der Does and Rob van der Burg meet during their school years through mutual friends and fall in love. In 2019, Michèlle receives an offer for a postdoc position at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven. “The offer and the prospect of moving to Germany were both – incredibly daunting and exciting.” Thus, Michèlle first moves to Germany alone and commutes back to Den Helder to Rob on weekends. In the beginning, she looks for an apartment for herself and Rob alongside her new job. In early summer, her boyfriend then moves in with her. Of course, their cat Cookie comes along as well. Rob and Michèlle quickly find their place in Bremerhaven and especially enjoy the nature in Germany. However, the couple does experience some discrimination, albeit to a lesser extent, and confronts prejudices. Nevertheless, Michèlle and Rob agree that their emigration experience has brought them closer together as a couple and that it has allowed their personalities to grow. Both are open to further adventures in their future.
Michèlle van der Does and Rob van der Burg are among the faces that have been visible on the facade of the new German Emigration Center since June 2021. Before the opening of the extension with the artistically designed facade, the Nordsee-Zeitung introduced the individuals featured. You can watch the corresponding film portrait of Michèlle van der Does and Rob van der Burg here.