As part of the 2012/13 exhibition, a reader for students, teachers and educators was produced in October 2012 with the kind support of the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future”. This educational reader can be ordered by schools and other educational institutions for a donation of 10 euros at info@homestory-deutschland.de.
From the preface
The presence of Black people in Germany and of Germans of African origin has many reasons. Their presence in this country can be traced long before German colonial history. As the end of the 19. and beginning of the When people from the African continent came to Germany in the 20th century, their countries were under German colonial rule and flag Therefore, many of them possessed German citizenship – even if this fact is not recognized until today.
In the course of the Second World War and in the years thereafter, Black people came to Germany as liberators from Nazi tyranny and as reconstruction workers. In the last more than fifty years, many people of African origin immigrated: as students, scientists, artists, workers and refugees.
Nevertheless, Germany has for a long time found it difficult to accept the existence of Black people and the existing ethnic and cultural diversity as normality. It was only a decade ago that Germany’s long-standing reality as a country of immigration was officially recognized. It is precisely this denial of reality that denies Black people in this country their German identity. Whether immigrated or not, being German is still supported by the idea of ethnic homogeneity.
This fact makes the project Homestory Germany. Black biographies in history and the present so important.
Both the exhibition and this youth reader offer the opportunity to engage with the historical and contemporary constitution of people of African descent of different generations in the German immigration society. Homestory Deutschland, a project initiated by the Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (ISD-Bund e.V.), gives them a face and a voice and, above all, shows the potential that lies within these people. It is about a self-confident, but above all a self-evident engagement with a Black presence.
This reader, with its biographically oriented narrative about the past and present of Black people, is aimed particularly at youth and students. This is precisely why the project fits well into the “History (n) in Diversity” program of the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future. The ECC strives to advance neglected historical references in the immigrant society into the collective culture of memory. This allows people not only to participate in the interpretation and reappraisal of history – their history – but also to share their experience with others. Because knowledge connects.
Mekonnen Mesghena
Head of the Migration and Diversity Department at the Heinrich Böll Foundation