Off to Sea!. Deutsches Kulturforum östliches Europa

      Cover-illustration: The Snow Township Baseball Team, McLean County, North Dacota

      We acknowledge our thanks to all the archive-holders, institutions, private persons who have made material available for our use. Persons or institutions that claim rights on illustrations are requested to contact the German Cultural Forum for Central and Eastern Europe.

      © 2015 by Deutsches Kulturforum östliches Europa for the German book edition Nach Übersee.

       Deutschsprachige Auswanderer aus dem östlichen Europa um 1900

      © 2019 for the English E-Book

      Deutsches Kulturforum östliches Europa

      Berliner Str. 135

      D–14467 Potsdam

      www.kulturforum.info

      The German Cultural Forum for Central and Eastern Europe is committed to a sophisticated and forward-looking debate on the history of those areas of Eastern Europe where Germans used to, or still live. The Forum organizes discussions, readings, exhibitions, concerts, prize-givings and conferences. It publishes non-fiction, cultural travel guides, readers and coffee-table books in The Potsdam Eastern Europe Series.

      All rights reserved.

      Editor: Ariane Afsari

      English translation by: Sheila Brain

      Reader of the English translation: Jennifer St. Thomas, Ariane

      Afsari, all authors

      Design: Hana Kathrin Stockhausen

      Layout, e-book-production: Sabine Abels, Hamburg, www.ebook-erstellung.de

      Made in Germany.

      ISBN 978-3-936168-80-8

      Contents

       Introduction: Europe as a continent of migration

       Jochen Oltmer

       From Klemzig to Klemzig: The first Prussian settlers in South Australia

       Anitta Maksymowicz

       19th Century migrants to New Zealand from Bohemia, and their descendants

       Wilfried Heller

       Overseas emigration from Bukovina

       Halrun Reinholz

       Galician Jews on the journey to New York

       Klaus Hödl

       From neighborly support to the insurance business: Transylvanian Saxons in the USA

       Harald Roth

       The Germans from Russia in the Americas: A Story of Retention and Transformation

       Eric J. Schmaltz

       “Plautdietsch” speaking Mennonites

       Göz Kaufmann

       Russian-German Songs of Emigration: From Record of History to Cultural Memory

       Ingrid Bertleff

       “Those who have abandoned their homeland” – Places where emigration history can be experienced.

       Wolfgang Grams

       Ellis Island – Migration to a Museum

       Tobias Weger

       Index of References

       Index of Names

       Index of Places

      Models of small boats used on the river Oder, loan of the city museum of Neusalz/Nowa Sól

      Introduction: Europe as a continent of migration

       Jochen Oltmer

      Human history is a history of migration. Since pre-historic ages, migrant flows of population across territories have been a central element of adapting to environmental circumstances as well as to social, economic, and political challenges. In recent centuries migration has changed the world: there are countless examples of the extent to which the composition of local populations, the development of employment markets and of cultural and religious orientations have been influenced by migrations related to employment, living conditions, flight, expulsion, or deportation. Migration is likely to remain a global topic for the future. This is made clear for example by current debates about the consequences of further growth in the world population, the ageing of societies in the rich Global North, climate change, or the shortage of skilled specialist workers for increasingly complex and tightly interconnected international knowledge-based corporations.

      Migration can be understood as a long-term geographical relocation of the focal point of life for individuals, families, groups, or indeed for a whole population. Distinctions can be made between different manifestations of geographical population movements. This particularly relates to migrations for the purpose of work or resettlement, nomadic movement, migration for education, training, and cultural reasons, for marriage, for economic improvement, as well as forced migration. Disregarding forced migration for the moment (mainly flight, expulsion, and deportation), then people on the move between geographical and social locations, whether individuals, families, or groups, are mostly seeking to improve their opportunities for employment, places to settle, job markets, education, training, or marriage, or just to get a new chance in life. The decision to migrate is a result of personal choices or new arrangements in family economic situations. There may indeed be no alternative actions for individuals and families to take, especially not when there is a real threat of existential need because of economic, social, or environmental crises.

      In that context belong the intercontinental migrations of the 19th and early 20th centuries, which led some 55 to 60 million Europeans to other parts of the world. The migration overseas of German-speaking settlers from eastern parts