Connecting the Dots of My History at the Deutsches Auswanderhaus
Since I first learned of its existence, the Deutsches Auswanderhaus (Museum of German Emigration) has been at the top of my list of things to see in Germany. This year, knowing it would be my last running an exchange program, I knew I must pay a visit. The Corpus Christi holiday weekend gave me a perfect opportunity. Since I could remember, my dad has told me that his grandfather and grandmother had been born in Germany. The names of their home towns have stayed in the family: the village of Diedelsheim (between Karlsruhe and Pforzheim) for my great-grandfather, and the city of Ulm for my great-grandmother. I visited both cities during my first trip to Germany in 1990, and have revisited several times over the years. I had also studied my grandparents’ lives after they immigrated to the United States: both migrated around 1895 and worked menial jobs until 1905, the year that they married and my great-grandfather opened a grocery store/ deli in the Bronx. (In his application for US cit...