In this Post, Felix Brahm explores further the project’s case study historical migration by discussing the media coverage of the return journey and arrival in Germany from Britain
In February 1905 and November 1906 respectively, two large groups of German Sinti and Roma landed in the port of Hamburg. Each group had travelled the United Kingdom for several months before being forcibly deported back to Germany. Their migratory experience and economic activities in the UK, the incentives and pressures to cross the channel in the first place, and their subsequent deportations form an important part of our research. While their journeys through Great Britain were accompanied by a massive media spectacle, with the travellers’ migration branded the “German gypsy invasion of Britain”, their return was covered much less intensively by the German press. However, the reports on these events that we’ve found are interesting, not only with regard to the information they hold on the emigrants themselves and their itineraries, but also in the way these reports differed in parts from the contemporary, highly stereotypical coverage on Sinti and Roma groups.
When the 1906 group was deported back to Germany from the port of Grimsby, the Hamburger Nachrichten sent a journalist to the Hamburg Sandtorquai O where the party of 125 people (other reports speak of 132) landed on 29 November. The arrivals were subject to a “tough inspection” of their documents. They were only allowed to land if a proof of German nationality was provided – which they all could (image: Sandtorquai in Hamburg, late 19th century, copyright HHLA/Gustav Werbeck).
The reporter of the Hamburger Nachrichten drew an image of the group which was in many ways typical of press reports on Sinti and Roma of this time, loaded with racialised and ethnocentric tropes. The reporter emphasised the dirtiness and raggedness of their appearance (“they all had one thing in common: unbelievable dirt and torn clothes”), but also drew upon exotic imaginary when describing the “peculiar picturesque” scene. He (or she, but most likely he) observed the “women and girls had brightly coloured ribbons and all kinds of ornaments in their hair, incredibly large rings in their ears, and many gold and silver rings on their dirty fingers”. “Unconcerned with the onlookers”, he went on, “four young mothers breastfed their babies amidst the crowd, the young people sang English songs and danced the Cakewalk, the women smoked their pipes, eight-year-old boys collected cigar butts.”
However, the article in the Hamburger Nachrichten (and subsequently the coverage in the Hamburgischer Correspondent and the Altonaer Nachrichten) also and surprisingly reported on the economic success of the migratory venture. Having departed from Germany (in late March/early April of the same year) with only four horses, they arrived back with 33. After speaking to members of the group, the correspondent of the Hamburger Nachrichtenreported that they were satisfied with the economic outcome – only to question whether horse trading could have been the main source of income and insinuate that it must have been begging and theft, fortune telling, and “incantation of spooks”. “Earnings” he put in quotation marks. He was back to the expected narrative when he lamented that “England got rid of the unwelcome guests”, while “Germany got them back”.
Interestingly, the news coverage on the return of the 1904-05 group, in February 1905, differed even more from familiar accounts. Unusually for press reports on Sinti and Roma groups in the decades around these events, these accounts showed empathy for the distress and traumatic experiences this group faced during their travels: The Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten stated that “the troop went to England some time ago, but it has been badly treated there. In the suburbs of London, the Gypsies were attacked and maltreated several times by the mob. The wagons that served as their homes were demolished.” The Berliner Börsen-Zeitung referred to the group as “unfortunate”, having been tricked by a dodgy emigration agent, pushed back and forth between the English counties (although this was similar to the practice between the German administrative districts), and exposed to a population incited against them by the “jingo press”. The probable reason why these reports differed in tone from the many reports we have on Sinti and Roma in Germany was simply that this happened in England: the fact that a group from Germany, allegedly from the Rhineland, was ill-treated in England superseded all other categories for the moment, creating some patriotic outrage and sympathy.
For us, the reports hold some useful information for further research, especially with regard to the mapping project. For instance, the report of the Hamburger Nachrichten on the return of the 1906 migrants specified that the group split up and intended to travel further to Wandsbek and Uelzen, Hanover and Stettin – possible routes that we will trace further.