Back in Germany?

German traces in Brazil
Firstly, I want to thank Martin for his colorful descriptions of Brazil. My wife, who is Brazilian, and me, went in 2004 and 2005 to most of the places that Martin describes (Curitiba, Bonito,..), and we can confirm that Martin identifies with a few words exactly the kernel of what's going on.

Let me just give some additional remarks on the German traces in Brazil that Martin talked about. We went to another city near Blumenau, called Pomerode, which is also essentially German. Is it - or is it not? We got confused. Nearly all shpos and companies have German names. Architecture is dominantly in German style. The cemetery was full of German names as well. (Particularly mentioned should be the family name 'Weege', which refers to the founder of a (yet closed) factory, appearing at every corner: Street names, gravestones, ....). But - are the Germans still there? The first samples of people passing us spoke exclusively Portuguese. We made the test, went in a fruit shop, bought some apples in German - lost. It was a young woman coming from north Brazil not speaking German at all. We passed a bank were the 'Oeffnungszeiten' were written in both German and Portuguese. We went for lunch in a restaurant called 'Siedlertal' with typical German appearance and decoration; all waiters dressed in Bavarian Lederhose, but - apparently not speaking German. We got disappointed. Was German tradition actually just a tourist attraction with nothing more behind it? We made a last attempt before leaving the city. We went to a small bar, were some workers were standing and taking lunch. And - all these people, wearing classical factory workwear, were speaking German! We got in a conversation with some of these workers, who confirmed that at least 80% in the city still speak German - though it cannot be considered as primary language any more. This seems to have been substantially different before the world war II, when the city was in every aspect actually German. However, during and after the war, Germans - and also the German language - faced severe restrictions in some regions in Brazil. Lots of cities lost their German names. Blumenau and Pomerode are two of the very few cities who could actually keep their name.

On the way back, we stayed one night in a hotel called 'Grunwald' between Joinville and Curitiba. We talked some time with the owner, who has German ancestors (but did not know at all that there is a city called Gruenwald near Munich...). He told us that the anti-German reaction was very heavy in Joinville. His grand-father was an important business man at that time in Joinville, but at the end of the war his business was destroyed, he was kept several days standing in water and his mustache was teared out with pincers (actually, I never had really thought about which consequences that war had in regions of the world that had nothing to do with it).

After the war, many were afraid of showing their German ancestry and overpainted their German-style timbered houses. We had seen these forgotten houses ourselves when we had been to Joinville earlier on our trip. At least, in the very last years it seems that the city recovered its self-image of being actually founded by Germans. Since 2002 (or so), all street names are again in Portuguese and German. That is, all street signs carry the Portuguese name given after the war, and below the German name (e.g. Hafengasse) which was used before the war. This German Renaissance - which certainly has to do with hopes to boost tourism - gives also reason to smile at some points: At one place, there was a new sign which was kindly given bilingually: 'Piscina' in Portuguese, and 'Schwimmenplatz' in German......