In the footsteps of Otto Sielaff -Hamburg Emigrant

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Geo: 53.5534, 9.9922

An amazing day, treading in the footsteps of my great-grandfather.

Otto Rudolph Carl Sielaff was born in about 1855 in Lauenberg, in what was then Prussia. We know that he came to Queensland, arriving in Maryborough (or Brisbane) on 25 June 1889, on the Merkara ship. He married Hannah Blass (1876-1939) at Laidley in 1898, and lived around the Darling Downs (Gatton, Clifton North, etc, before retiring up in Hervey Bay/Wondai according to Electoral Rolls). My grandfather, Franz Carl Hermann Sielaff was born 25/9/11, in Toowoomba, when his father was 56, and was followed by siblings Wilhelm Carl Franz (16/6/13) and Roberta Doreen Emilie (Wendt) in 1915. Otto died 25/2/34 and is buried in Maryborough.

The day today was focussed on what Germany/Prussia was like, when my great grandfather left, and the reasons that he might have left. The potato famine didn't only affect Ireland, but caused 50000 deaths and a 50% drop in the potato crop in Prussia in the 1840s, and this would have affected his parents. Wars around the unification of German in the 1870s also saw people dispossessed - Prussia, as it had been, no longer existed, with parts forming Poland and other parts in the new German nation. With few rights and often no land, there was little to tie them to their homeland.

Changing economic patterns left more people without land. Yet once again, the poorest people in society did not leave – they had no way to finance such an undertaking. Instead, the lower middle class of agricultural laborers, often those with families, most frequently set off to make a new life across the ocean.We believe that the Sielaffs were farmers - certainly, Stan said that Frank sure knew good farming practices, and believes that these came from Otto, and his parents before him.

We woke to pouring rain - the first rainy day that we've had since arriving in Europe. Add to that the excitement of finding that the car had quite a thick layer of ice on it! So we drove back towards Hamburg, making our first destination the Emigrant Museum.

The BallinStadt (Ballin Halls) were built after Otto Sielaff left Germany, but only just! We were able to see the sort of halls that were built to cope with the huge number of people leaving Germany - heading mainly to America, but all over the world - these halls had to house and feed the people whilst they waited to pass immigration and health checks.

The stories of the different immigrants, over the past 120 years, were fascinating. Certainly, it was an interesting (and political) juxtaposition of the stories of emigrants from 100 years ago compared to the incoming immigrants from Syria and Iraq today - it was very much portrayed as a normal "ebb and flow" of humanity, and something that has happened to everyone's family in the past, and could happen to anyone's family in the future. A fascinating morning.

From there, we went to the St Michaelis church, the baroque church that emigrants tended to visit before departing Hamburg to the New World. It was awe-inspiring to think that we were treading in the steps of our ancestors. Of course, like most of Germany, the church is a bit like "grandma's ax" - it was built in 1750, burnt down, rebuilt in 1762, burnt down in 1906, rebuilt and then bombed to the ground in 1943 - it was rebuilt exactly to the 1762 plans, and has only be finally finished in 2009! It was stunningly beautiful - very Lutheran, and the kids were fascinated by the numbered seats.

From there, we went to the inner city of Hamburg (discovering that its not easy to park a van that is 2.2m in an inner city where all carparks are only 1.9m high). It was still raining, so we had lunch at the very nice Europe Passage shopping centre food court (an Indian curry was a good contrast to German food) then headed over to the Rathaus for a tour. Steven and Tom legged it back to the car to feed the meter - an adventure when they were told by the very nice parking inspector that it wasn't any use putting more money in the meter as it wasn't a legal park - but they found another park and made it back to the tour with 10 seconds to spare. Whilst they were doing that, we were taking it very easy in the very nice restaurant/coffee shop under the Rathaus!

The tour of the Rathaus was a real highlight - far more than any of us expected. Hamburg is extremely proud of its history as an independent state, part of the Hanseatic League - a medieval trade monopoly across Northern Europe since 1241. The most notable palace in Hamburg is the town hall, which houses the citizen's parliament and the senate - and it is seriously opulent. It was inaugurated in 1897, has 647 rooms and stands on over 4,000 oak piles. In stark contrast to the restrained Hanseatic style, the Town Hall is conspicuous due to its elaborately decorated façade, flanked by a total of 20 statues of emperors. The following is written in Latin above the main door: "The descendants shall seek worthily to maintain the freedom achieved by their forebears." Again, significant rebuilding of the Rathaus was undertaken after WWII, only being completed in the 1990s. The outside was impressive, but the interior was even more sumptous!

We then drove home, for a short rest before venturing out to Lauenberg for dinner. We happened across the Schipperhaus (The Old Schiffer House) - an old hotel dating from the 1600s. Best meal in Germany, according to the kids - they loved the Schifferhaus-Pfanne - a huge pan of sausages, potatoes and bacon with hollandaise sauce (well, who wouldn't!) More about Lauenberg and our links to this beautiful town on the banks of the Elbe later....

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Comments

[Tom]

I hope you feel better! You are not allowed to get sick on vacation!! So there!!