Familiar Foreign Land

The pictures presented follow the path of these people from the Greek tobacco fields to the German industrial production lines, from the large Greek family to the loneliness of workers guest houses, from the emotional farewell scenes to their gradual settling down in their ‘second home’.

The exhibition records both the work of immigrant workers who played an important role in both the German and Greek economies, but it also reflects the inner world of the immigrants themselves: the discord between the high expectations and the harsh reality, between the country they left and the one they found over the years in a foreign land.

From these documents springs the image of immigrants who were the pioneers of a modern working world defined by the mobility between countries.

From the archive of DOMID – Documentation Centre and Museum of Migration in Germany.