John Foulks
On August 16, 1910, Anton Oravecz emigrates from what was then Austria-Hungary, now Slovakia, to America via Bremerhaven. Near Philadelphia, he finds a job at a steel mill. More than a hundred years later, his great-great-granddaughter is born in the city where his ship departed. His grandson, John Foulks, is born in 1976 in a village in New Jersey near Delaware. At 17, he decides to spend a year as an exchange student in Germany: “Germany was more or less a coincidence. A friend of mine, who had gone there, raved about it. So I applied for Germany and was accepted.” At first, he lives with a host family in Thuringia for a month. Then he moves to a school in St. Peter-Ording, learns German, and makes many friends. The daughter of his new host family, whose room he occupies, lives in the USA at that time. He will later become friends with her. Also in her friend group is John Foulks’ future wife, whom he initially only meets fleetingly during his exchange year. Back in the USA, he enrolls in the program “German Culture and Society” and works as a German teacher at a high school. He later completes a Master’s in “Germanic Linguistics.” In 2005, he comes to Kiel with a doctoral project. He eventually drops out of the program but stays in Kiel and works as an English teacher there. “I remember again today these privileges that one has as an American. It was really easy; you just have to know the bureaucratic steps. There are no legal obstacles in your way. When I think about my life, I almost only think about how easy it was. And when you see today how many people have to fear for their lives, wandering the world for their children, crossing the Mediterranean, being kidnapped, relying on traffickers … And for me, it was so easy. Is that fair? Obviously not. That makes me angry.” At a celebration of his former host family’s daughter, he meets many acquaintances from his exchange year again – including his future wife. Together, they emigrate back to the USA in 2013, where his wife has been offered a doctoral scholarship. “It’s exciting to go back to the homeland. I can pick up this excitement, and I was happy. It was a new adventure. But it was a shock – after eight years in Germany. That was a culture shock. I experienced culture shock in my own country.” In the USA, John Foulks decides to start a new career and studies law. After graduation, he works for a year at a court. In 2018, his now-doctorate-holding wife receives a job offer from Bremerhaven. For both of them, it is clear: They are going back to Germany. Shortly thereafter, their daughter is born, who grows up bilingual in Bremerhaven.
A portrait of John Foulks is one of the faces displayed on the facade of the new German Emigration Center since June 2021. Before the opening of the extension building with its artistically designed facade, the Nordsee-Zeitung introduced the individuals behind the faces. You can see the corresponding film portrait of John Foulks here.