AEMI

98 AEMI JOURNAL 2015
Fig 1 The NordseeMuseum, Nissenhaus has been built and equipped by the money and the art collection of
Ludwig Nissen, a rich New Yorker diamond importer born in Husum.
Source: NordseeMuseum Nissenhaus
since she began to research her Frisian
roots in the 1970s as a young student.
Now a professor of literature she has in
recent years twice recorded her experiences
into poetic form, as she explained
to a large audience in the Nordfriisk Instituut
about the Finding of her North
Frisian Self.
The passage quoted above shows one
possible reaction which the home-coming
emigrant often meets with: the
visitor as a celebrity, sometimes being
remembered for a long time. Just a short
while ago a seventy-year-old man told
me about his relatives from New York
visiting Germany in the 1950s. The first
thing he mentioned was their big U. S.
American car with white sidewall tires
and more than 100 horse power. To a
boy then they were like visitors from
another world. But the 1847 newspaper
article from the year 1847, as it continues,
gives another perspective on the
visitor:
That guy knows how to show off … with
his grey hat and his coat with red lining
… but in the end he had to look for
other people, who take him back with
them for free – and that was shabby. 2
As the author indicated, to recruit new
emigrants for a free passage he had to
make false or grossly exaggerated promises
to encourage them to leave. The in-