Collection
Our Mission
The German Emigration Center in Bremerhaven has made it its mission to preserve the material and immaterial traces of migration to and from Germany since the 18th century. We aim to make the history and extraordinary significance of migration for the development of politics, culture, and society accessible to a broad audience, thereby providing an important impetus for a constantly relevant discourse. We pay special attention to the immediate experiences and life stories of migrants and immigrants – the central agents and witnesses of migration.
Why Collect?
History and events leave both material and immaterial traces. In spaces, societies, and in people’s lives. All of them are at risk of disappearing: through displacement, modernization, chemical and physical processes – and through amnesia. Especially the stories of those who, like migrants, opened many chapters of their lives in different places tend to vanish quickly. The same applies to documents related to immigration and emigration, which are mostly kept privately – beyond state administration, libraries, or corporate archives.
Whether letters, travel documents, or photographs: many disappear with new generations who no longer know the stories and faces behind the objects. Personal items can provide us with an irreplaceable insight and empathy into historical events. In a world continuosly shaped by migration, it is an important societal task to preserve such memorabilia, to research these objects, and to make them accessible to a wide audience through publications and special exhibitions. Therefore, at the German Emigration Center, we actively collect these traces and stories, thile writing history further.
History of the Collection
Shortly after the opening of the German Emigration Center in 2005, numerous opportunities arose to complement and expand the initial collection. Many visitors approached us after their tour to share their family history with our researchers and subsequently donate personal objects. Since 2007, we have systematically collected as a migration museum to keep the German and Eastern European migration history alive, document and illustrate its traces, and in particular the life stories of migrants. Today, over 3,000 family stories and their related documents and objects form the core of our museum collection.
What do we collect?
Migration history has only recently received recognition as a defining part of German and European history, and the individual fate of the ‘common people’ has only played a role in the examination of historical phenomena for a few decades. Much has not been recognized for its particular value to a collection, even today. Therefore, collecting pieces from migration history requires special sensitivity, responsible documentation, and careful, professional preservation.
The collection work of the German Emigration Center focuses centrally on the period from the 17th century to the present, dealing with German and Eastern European emigration overseas, international immigration to Germany, as well as internal migration within Germany. The history of labor migration from Vietnam to the former GDR can be a topic, just like a migration story from Bremen to Australia.
An object, picture, or document with its own story can enrich the collection in various ways:
- as a collective memory object that many migrants encountered in a concrete way (e.g., border markers, ship equipment)
- as objects that became memorable pieces or important companions in an individual migration story (e.g., cameras, clothing items, talismans)
- as personal and official original documents (e.g., letters, travel documents, residence permits, work permits)
- as print media (e.g., books, magazines, maps)
- as media (e.g., films, photos, audio recordings)
- as works of visual art (e.g., graphics or paintings)
In addition personal storytelling provides not olny an opportunity to highlight an object through a personal perspective. Narratives and immediate experiences are also extraordinary documents of history. This is why we collect oral testimonies in our ‘Oral History Archive’. Whether it’s one’s own migration story or the account of emigration preserved over generations and its consequences for the family members, it is documented in writing, on tape, or in film.
We are looking for your story
Would you like to contribute to research? Make your own experience visible and audible? Or are you considering making a special memento of your family accessible to others? Please feel free to contact our collection manager directly and discuss with us.
German Emigration Center
Dr. Tanja Fittkau
Columbusstraße 65
27568 Bremerhaven
Tel: 0471 / 90 22 0 – 0
E-Mail: t.fittkau@dah-bremerhaven.de
Object of the Month
Jedes Objekt in der Sammlung des Deutschen Auswandererhauses erzählt eine ganz persönliche Auswanderungs- oder Einwanderungsgeschichte. In der Rubrik Objekt des Monats stellen wir Ihnen jeden Monat ein besonderes Objekt unserer Sammlung vor – eine Fotografie, ein Dokument oder ein persönliches Erinnerungsstück.