Diary, 1959
In March 1959, Monika Reitzig from Bremen travels in tourist class on the “Berlin” from Bremerhaven to New York. The seventeen-year-old wants to spend a year in the USA as an exchange student with her host family, the Nimzes. Together with her American friend, June Ashley, who had previously been an exchange student in Germany and is now returning to the USA, she experiences a dramatic crossing: the “Berlin” encounters a severe storm, and four sailors are washed overboard and killed while trying to repair a smashed hatch. As terrible as the journey is for Monika, her return journey after an eventful year in April 1960 is all the more joyful: on board the “Bremen”, she meets her future husband Horst Mügge while playing table tennis. He was also only temporarily in the USA as part of a gifted trip after passing his high school exams. Diaries give us a very personal insight into the daily lives of people, their experiences, thoughts, and feelings. The records allow us to hear the voices of living people as well as those long deceased, and to see past events through the eyes of witnesses. Through diaries, we learn how much a German farmer in Wisconsin had to pay for a cow in 1883 or how the German exchange student Monika Reitzig experienced her journey to the USA in 1959. We learn through diaries how a Jewish girl experienced daily life under National Socialism or how soldiers spent their time at the front.
