What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast

Now that you've heard more about how music, food, film and fashion impacted the lives of our four interviewees in their journeys across the ocean, it's your turn to investigate. How have other immigrant groups experienced these - and other - aspects of migration? How has access to the comforts of home changed between the 1950s and our more well-connected modern-day world? Put your history caps on and go explore! And don't forget to check out whattheycanteachus.ca and listen to the full stories from Barbara, Lisa, Alma and Anneliese.
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Cover design by Alexe Normandin
Jingle music composed by Frank Brückner. All other sounds and voices (except for the interviews of What They Can Teach Us): © Frank Brückner
Source links:
Lisa Schwabe, Oral History interview by Alexander Freund (Vancouver, B.C., Canada; September 29, 1993), Identity in Immigration Collection, Alexander Freund Fond, German-Canadian Oral History Archive, University of Winnipeg Oral History Archive.
Barbara Baanders, Oral History interview by Alexander Freund (Richmond, B.C., Canada; September 22, 1993), Identity in Immigration Collection, Alexander Freund Fond, German-Canadian Oral History Archive, University of Winnipeg Oral History Archive.
Anneliese Lomer, Session 1, Oral History interview by Alexander Freund (Surrey, B.C., Canada; November 30, 1993), Identity in Immigration Collection, Alexander Freund Fond, German-Canadian Oral History Archive, University of Winnipeg Oral History Archive.
Friedel Hensch & Die Cypros – Tango Max (1951)
1950S WOMEN’S BEAUTY & FASHION FILM   WOMAN’S FIGURE
Best Of Bollywood - 1940 || Old Hindi Songs || Jukebox
Panambitan - RUBEN TAGALOG @Harana Pilipino
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Transcript:
Lisa: "To immigrate? [Laughs] Well, when did I come to Canada? In 1951. I think one of the main reasons why I came to Canada was more adventure. We were cooped up in Germany, the war kept us down, so I thought, ‘Oh well, I like to see the world now.’”
Barbara: “Why I went to Canada is because I was given the opportunity by the Canadian government to immigrate to Canada. The motive was that I wanted to have my own pottery and I knew in Germany without funds in my situation as a refugee I would never have the funds, the money to have my own equipment, to make pottery independently. And that is why I went here.”
Anneliese: “My decision to emigrate, of course that was when I was still in Germany, and I had completed a nursing training and I was working in a mental institution as a nurse. And then it was a big PR rush from Canada to attract German people, German girls especially, actually I don’t remember them mentioning men.”
You have been listening to What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast. A series of short podcasts providing additional context to the website “What They Can Teach Us”. You learned about various aspects of life in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Barbara, Lisa, Alma, and Anneliese, like so many of our parents and grandparents, immigrated from Germany to Canada.
[Music plays]
[Advertisement] Shell pink silk linen in a sleek, slimline sheath, touched with Swiss-embroidered applique.
We focused on popular music of their time and looked at the films people went to see in theaters back then. We cast a light on clothing fashions of the day and explored different regional cuisines.
However, the four women portrayed on the website “What They Can Teach Us” only represent a sliver of the immigrant experience in Canada. Anneliese, Alma, Lisa, and Barbara came from Germany to start a new life in Canada. Many other newcomers came and still come to North America from all corners of the world.
[Music plays]
What was it like to immigrate from, say, Calcutta to Winnipeg in 1960? How difficult was it in 1973 to find spices in Calgary for an original Moroccan tagine or a jollof rice dish from Senegal? What did Filipino teenagers experience in the 1980s when they moved from Mindanao to Montreal?
[Music plays]
The immigrant experience is both international and individual and there are many reasons for someone to leave their home country for a new unknown one. All the journeys and all the experiences of those who came before us have helped to shape the unique individuals we are today.
[Speaking in different languages]
If the website and the podcast of “What They Can Teach Us” has inspired you to investigate your own family history, go for it! And perhaps you will also find a way to share what you've discovered.
This is the epilogue to the series of podcasts accompanying the website “What They Can Teach Us”. The website and podcasts were initiated, funded, and supported by the Chair in German-Canadian Studies at the University of Winnipeg.
Researched, written, produced, and read by me, Frank Brückner.
 

Film fans, this one's for you! Let's go behind-the-scenes with Frank Brückner as he traces the history of cinema, and how innovations in "moving pictures" shaped what Barbara, Lisa, Alma and Anneliese were watching before - and after - their journeys across the ocean.
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Cover art by Alexe Normandin.
Jingle music composed by Frank Brückner. All other sounds and voices (except for the interviews of What They Can Teach Us): © Frank Brückner
Source Links:
M (movie, 1931)
Furtwängler - Götterdämmerung, Prologue Dawn (Live)
Film Projector Sound Effect - Home and Office Sounds
Charlie Chaplin - Kid Auto Races At Venice. High Quality
"Moloch Motiv", from Metropolis Medley - Gottfried Huppertz (1927 78 rpm Record)
Der Blaue Engel (1930) – Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt
Die Drei von der Tankstelle (1930) – Ein Freund, ein guter Freund
Die Deutsche Wochenschau (1943)
Die Feuerzangenbowle (1944)
Der Mann, der Sherlock Holmes war (1937) – Jawohl, meine Herren
Die Mörder sind unter uns (1946)
Schwarzwaldmädel (1950)
Bush Pilot (1947)
Lisa Schwabe, Oral History interview by Alexander Freund (Vancouver, B.C., Canada; September 29, 1993), Identity in Immigration Collection, Alexander Freund Fond, German-Canadian Oral History Archive, University of Winnipeg Oral History Archive.
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Transcript: 
[Movie clip plays]
These were excerpts from the 1931 German movie M by Fritz Lang. It is considered by many to be one of the greatest films of all time.
It is highly unlikely that Barbara, Anneliese, Lisa or Alma saw M when it was released in German cinemas, as they were small children in 1931, and M deals with grim subject matter. However, as these women grew up, they became true film lovers and often went to the movie theater to see a new movie as soon as it came out.
Welcome to What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast. My name is Frank Brückner and I created the series to provide additional context to the website, “What They Can Teach Us,” which was developed from interviews with four women who immigrated from Germany to Canada in the early 1950s.
The website and podcasts were initiated and are supported by the Chair in German-Canadian studies at the university of Winnipeg. In these podcasts, you will learn what life was like in the late 1940s and early 1950s when Barbara, Lisa, Alma, and Anneliese, like so many of our parents and grandparents, left Germany and crossed the Atlantic ocean to begin their lives anew in Canada.
This is part 3 of a series of short podcasts, accompanying the interviews of “What They Can Teach Us”: What They Were Watching. Let's take a peek with our ears.
[Movie clip plays]
Among the many difficulties these women faced when they immigrated to Canada was the language barrier. Their English was not very good, if it existed at all.
They came from a different culture and had just survived the most horrible war in world history started by their fellow Germans. They were seeking a new and better life in an unknown, sparsely populated country, 28 times the size of Germany.
Barbara, Anneliese, Lisa, and Alma had to immerse themselves into every aspect of their new home country. Movies provided a genius way to do that as they are based in visual storytelling. New immigrants to Canada, even if they did not yet understand English, were mostly able to follow the plot of films that were showing in their local movie houses.
By the time our four interviewees Anneliese, Barbara, Alma, and Lisa arrived in Canada in the early 1950s, the art of films with sound was only about 20 years old.
Before sound films, which were also known as “talking pictures” or “talkies”, or Tonfilm in German, there were silent movies, often accompanied by live music to provide the score. Title cards explained the plot and or the dialogues. This silent film era spanned more than 30 years, from the late 19th century until the late 1920s.
[Movie clip plays]
Among the first inventors of film were the brothers Max and Eugen [sic] Skladanowsky in Berlin with their “Bioscope,” and Louis and August Lumière with their “Cinématograph” in Paris, who screened their short films in front of astonished audiences, just two weeks apart from each other in late 1895.
No matter if we are talking about live action or an animated cartoon, one second of film is composed of 24 individual frames, as they are called. How does that translate into length? Let's do some math.
With a 35-millimeter film, one second of film is about 45 centimeters long. One minute, about 27 meters. And a 90-minute movie is about 2,469 meters long, two and a half kilometers. That is almost 130,000 single frames. A five-minute short film contains 7,200 individual frames. That's a lot to take in.
[Movie clip plays]
We often associate the golden age of German silent movies with expressionist films, such as Fritz Lang's fantastic futuristic science fiction movie Metropolis from 1927, shot at Babelsberg film studio, which still exists to this day in Potsdam, just outside of Berlin.
There's also The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with its crooked walls and dramatic lighting made by Robert Wiener in 1920.
And of course the first film adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, the terrifyingly beautiful vampire film Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau.
In reality though, the overwhelming majority of films produced in Germany, Canada, and the United States were entertainment flicks that satisfied the taste of a broader audience. Period films, romantic comedies, or melodramas were actually more popular genres than expressionism.
During the same time period, Canadian cinema was dominated by American productions. Of the few Canadian films that were produced, the most expensive one, the sentimental World War I drama Carry On Sergeant, dramatically failed at the box office after its release in 1928, and it took the Canadian film industry until after the Second World War to recover.
In contrast, during the 14 years of the Weimar period, the first democracy in Germany, from late 1918 to early 1933, the German film industry churned out an average of 250 films per year, with Babelsberg Studio becoming the largest studio in Europe. It was often considered the German equivalent to Hollywood.
Since silent films did not present a challenge when it came to language, even foreign actors could be hired. American actor Louise Brooks, as well as Greta Garbo from Sweden, played leading roles in German director G.W. Pabst’s films.
The advent of sound in film in the late 1920s changed the industry once again. Some producers and studios were reluctant at first, but the 1930 drama The Blue Angel, or Der blaue Engel, Germany's first “talkie” by Josef von Sternberg, made Marlene Dietrich an international superstar.
[Movie clip plays]
Other early films with sound were Berlin Alexanderplatz, an adaptation of Alfred Dublin's novel, and the Threepenny Opera, adapted from Bertolt Brecht, as well as the previously mentioned thriller M by Fritz Lang, with the powerful actor Peter Lorre.
[Movie clip plays]
By 1932, Germany had 3,800 cinemas eligible to play Tonfilme, or sound films. One of the most successful productions was the musical film Die drei von der Tankstelle - The Three from the Gas Station - with its tunes that are still well-known today.
[Movie clip plays]
Very soon after sound hit the movie theaters, the time of artistic and personal freedom in Germany came to a brutal end. By the late 1920s, several German-Jewish filmmakers had already been invited to work in Hollywood, among them Ernst Lubitsch and Michael Curtiz.
But when Hitler and his anti-Semitic and anti-democratic movement seized power in 1933, they immediately banned Jews from working in film, hospitals, at universities, in public administrations, and in many other places. They even banned lighthearted comedic musical films like The Three from the Gas Station, because too many of the cast and production crew were Jewish.
In the years right after 1933, more than 1,500 film professionals, directors, actors, screenwriters, cinematographers, and others left Germany. Most of them went to the United States.
This enormous artistic and intellectual brain drain was not limited to the film industry. Writers, artists, university professors, musicians, industrialists, doctors, journalists, politicians, and regular everyday people fled from the rapidly escalating regime of terror. Many of them were Jewish, like Hedy Lamarr and Billy Wilder. Others were communists, like writer Bertolt Brecht, or had a deep hatred of Nazis, like Marlene Dietrich.
However, not everybody was lucky enough to get out of Germany and, later, Europe. Kurt Gerron, a highly successful actor and director who acted, among many other movies, in The Blue Angel and Die Drei von der Tankstelle, was forced to direct the Nazi propaganda film Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet, which means Theresienstadt. A Documentary Film from the Jewish Settlement Area. A fake documentary aimed at deceiving the Red Cross about the inhumane conditions in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Shortly after completion of filming, Kurt Gerron, his wife, and the entire film team were deported to Auschwitz and murdered in the gas chamber upon arrival in October 1944.
Film artists who stayed in Germany either made arrangements with the Nazi regime, kept a low profile, or full-heartedly embraced the new movement. Still, there were exceptions. Some risked everything by helping Jewish or other persecuted Germans to hide and/or escape from their Heimat, or homeland.
[Deutsche Wochenschau intro plays]
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Alma, Anneliese, Barbara and Lisa were six, nine, seven and 10 years old, respectively. As they came of age in the so-called Third Reich, they must have heard this opening sequence of the Deutsche Wochenschau, which translates to “German Weekly Review,” at the start of the newsreels that screened in theaters before the main film.
Newsreels have been screened before the main film since the beginning of German cinema. Silent and often containing war propaganda, like their European enemies’ counterparts in World War I, they became less propagandistic and more informative after the end of World War I.
By 1933, there were four major German companies producing short documentary newsreels, each with their own individual focus on world events. Shortly after the Nazi takeover in January 1933, under pressure of Josef Goebbels' new Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, newsreels were censored and aligned with the new rulers' politics.
Seven years later, in June 1940, a month after the German attack on France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and less than a year after Germany started the Second World War with its attack on Poland, all four newsreel companies were merged into Die Deutsche Wochenschau.
Opening with a sequence of the infamous “Horst Wessel Lied,” the Deutsche Wochenschau spat out hateful propaganda and footage of victorious battles to energetic tunes of glorious fanfares and pathetic words fanatically declaimed by Nazi narrators. This program was broadcast until the very end of Nazi dictatorship in May 1945.
[Movie clip plays]
The Nazis recognized the immense importance of sound and film and used them for their purposes. We often associate the 12 years of Nazi dictatorship with big propaganda movies like Triumph of the Will or Olympia, both directed by Leni Riefenstahl. Her use of light, choreography and music were regarded as technically innovative and creatively aesthetic. Yet at the same time the glorious glorification of white Aryan supremacy made her one of the most effective propagandists of the so-called Third Reich and helped pave the way to the Holocaust.
Riefenstahl even used Romani prisoners from camps for extras who were mistreated on set, then sent to the death camp Auschwitz once filming was finished. Leni Riefenstahl kept denying her responsibility until she died in 2003 at the age of 101.
Leni Riefenstahl's films, along with other white nationalist and anti-Semitic productions such as Ohm Krüger, produced and starring Emil Jannings, the winner of the world's first Oscar, or Jud Süß, a hateful depiction of Jews based on distorted facts of a real judicial murder in the 18th century, reached vast audiences.
300 film trucks and two film trains drove all across Germany and occupied territories, screening these films everywhere, from beer halls in remote villages to big theaters. These mass screenings were instrumental in helping Nazi philosophy to penetrate Germany and Austria.
However, even the propaganda ministry knew that the depiction of too much hate on the screen would be counterproductive to their goals. So propaganda films or blatantly anti-Semitic productions made up a maximum of 20% of all films in Germany. The rest of the films either conveyed extreme right-wing propaganda in very subtle doses or not at all.
As with most authoritarian governments, it was more important for the Nazis to rule over their followers using a modern equivalent to the ancient Roman motto, panem et circenses, which basically means “bread and games.”
Thus, the majority of movies were pure entertainment: comedies, melodramas, historical or musical films. They entertained the audience and helped to distract them from actual politics, crimes against humanity and the war.
More than a billion people per year saw movies in about 7,000 theaters in the so-called Großdeutsches Reich or “Greater German Empire,” including Austria and occupied countries.
One of the most famous movies is the 1944 comedy film Die Feuerzangenbowle, or The Punchbowl, starring Heinz Rühmann, one of the biggest German movie stars of the time, whose career also continued after the war, despite his involvement in Nazi film industry. Die Feuerzangenbowle, with its funny characters and lighthearted plot, has developed into a cult movie, still shown at German universities and on TV around Christmas.
[Movie clip plays]
Although all movies were censored by the National Socialist regime, some, which did not necessarily conform to the Nazi ideal, were still allowed. Many of those films had swing music in their soundtracks, which was otherwise banned in lieu of nationalist ideas of racial pseudo-Germanic folk music. The following excerpt from the 1937 film Der Mann der Sherlock Holmes war - The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes - is a perfect example of that contradiction.
[Movie clip plays]
When the war ended, Barbara, Lisa, Alma and Anneliese were teenagers, or in their early twenties, respectively. Thanks to the military power of American, Canadian and British forces in the West and the Red Army in the East, the murderous Nazi regime came crashing down and so did its propaganda machine. Germany was forced to surrender unconditionally and the entire country was occupied by the Allied forces and later divided into four different zones.
Surprisingly, the German film industry began making films very soon. The first movie of a number of Trümmerfilme, or “rubble films,” was Die Mörder sind unter uns, which translates to The Murderers are Among Us, selling almost six and a half million tickets.
[Movie clip plays]
Filming in the ruins of bombed-out cities offered extraordinary opportunities in terms of style and sets. Often cinematography evoked expressionist images of earlier films from the 1920s. Others, the romanticism of Caspar David Friedrich's paintings.
While some of these early movies attempted to acknowledge German guilt, they were at the same time accused of whitewashing the Nazi history and war crimes and instead focusing on German suffering and post-war trauma.
After the war, the main forces behind efforts to denazify Germany were the United States and the Soviet Union, and film was once again the perfect tool to reach hearts and minds. Now Germans going to the movies were exposed for the first time to newsreel footage of the horrors that occurred in the concentration camps, images that Germans were not shown while the Nazis were in power.
In the years before television, regular, everyday Germans had no opportunity to watch the evening news to learn what some of their countrymen were doing to other human beings. The period of “rubble films” were short and the movies were not very successful as most Germans were not ready to be confronted with their recent past and many were unable or unwilling to accept their complicity in Nazi politics and crimes.
It wasn't long until Germans were craving normality. In the late 1940s, “rubble movies” with their grim topics and imagery were succeeded by Heimatfilme, or “homeland films,” often shot in idyllic landscapes unscathed by the war, such as the Alps or the Lüneburg Heath.
These simplistic and sentimental stories set in the countryside showing conservative gender roles, untouchable class distinctions and stereotypical characters created and satisfied a yearning for good old days that never really existed. And the good guy always won the girl in the end.
Schwarzwaldmädel, or Black Forest Girl, from 1950 is considered the first Heimatfilm. Many more followed well into the 1960s.
[Movie clip plays]
Heimatfilme with their romantic stories of life untouched by the horrors of the Third Reich helped to lull Germans into a soothing amnesia, which would last until the early 1960s, when finally the first former Nazi perpetrators were put on trial in Frankfurt, following the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.
[Movie clip plays]
After World War II, the Canadian film industry slowly came back. Apart from financing, the biggest challenge was language. The two major languages, French and English, also defined the two film markets in Canada. Most films were produced in Quebec, and some movies were shot in both languages with a different cast.
When Alma, Anneliese, Barbara and Lisa arrived in Vancouver, there were 41 movie theaters in the city, ranging from 416 to 2,871 seats. Most of the films they screened were US productions, which nevertheless helped all four protagonists to familiarize themselves with the new language and North American ways of life.
Or, as Lisa explained, “We went to the movies. We sat all day long in the movies, you know, and that's where I learned a lot of English, just listening to the sound, you know.”
[Movie clip plays]
This ongoing series will add new podcasts in irregular intervals, so stay tuned for What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast and check back regularly for new episodes.

Travel back along the threads of time as Frank Brückner weaves a brief history of fashion. Learn when humans began wearing clothing, and when garments went from simple practicality to a display of cultural identity. Follow our interviewees as they share what clothing meant to them when they made their way to Canada. 
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Cover design by Alexe Normandin.
Jingle music composed by Frank Brückner. All other sounds and voices (except for the interviews of What They Can Teach Us): © Frank Brückner
Source links:
Oktoberfest 2025, Munich - Opening Day
Royalty free music to use in your YouTube video - Oompah polka
Record Needle Scratches   Sound Effects (High Quality)
Seagull sounds
Foghorn Sound Effect - Isolated Ship Horn
Glückliche Kühe auf Schweizer Alpen - das Paradies auf Erden
Böhmische Polka Skoda Lasky   Schade Um Die Liebe
Scary Cold Howling Snowstorm in a Frozen Arctic Environment for Relaxation, Sleeping and Fantasy.
Oxen Cart
Schmiedehandwerk vom feinsten  in UHD 4K
Hot iron meets cold water!🔥💧#blacksmith #shorts #metalart #metalwork #foryou #forging
What is the effect of a blacksmith putting iron bars in water#workers #works #blacksmith
Edith Piaf - Ça ira
Siegfried Arno - Wenn die Elisabeth nicht so schöne Beine hätt (1930)
Normandy, The Airborne Invasion of Fortress Europe
Sirenenalarm im Zweiten Weltkrieg - Berlin 1945   Fm Si 41
Ju87 Stuka Dive Bombers in Action with Sound and Sirens WW2 Luftwaffe Footage
FASHION MEANS BUSINESS   1947 LOOK AT WORLD FASHION  CHRISTIAN DIOR, BERGDORF GOODMAN, VOGUE  56774
An Evening Fashion Show at the Savoy Hotel London (1951)   Vintage Fashions
Christian Dior's  New Look  Fashions   Movietone Moment   12 Feb 16(1947/48)
Everything You Need to Know About Christian Dior’s New Look Silhouette | Vogue
Anneliese Lomer, Session 1, Oral History interview by Alexander Freund (Surrey, B.C., Canada; November 30, 1993), Identity in Immigration Collection, Alexander Freund Fond, German-Canadian Oral History Archive, University of Winnipeg Oral History Archive.
Barbara Baanders, Oral History interview by Alexander Freund (Richmond, B.C., Canada; September 22, 1993), Identity in Immigration Collection, Alexander Freund Fond, German-Canadian Oral History Archive, University of Winnipeg Oral History Archive.
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Transcript:
Ach, Deutschland. Every day is Oktoberfest. Lederhosen and dirndls everywhere you go. Wait. If you think that's what Germans wear, think again!
Welcome to What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast. My name is Frank Brückner and I created this series to provide additional context to the website “What They Can Teach Us,” which was developed from interviews with four women who immigrated from Germany to Canada in the early 1950s.
The website and podcasts were initiated and are supported by the Chair in German-Canadian Studies at the University of Winnipeg. In these podcasts you will learn what life was like in the late 1940s and early 1950s when Barbara, Lisa, Alma and Anneliese, like so many of our parents and grandparents, left Germany and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to begin their lives anew in Canada.
This is part 4: What They Were Wearing.
Of course, dirndls and lederhosen exist and are still worn on special occasions in certain regions of Germany, but they are only one of many traditional folk costumes, or Trachten, in the country, and you would have a hard time finding them outside the alpine regions of Bavaria, Austria or South Tyrol in northern Italy.
Germany is a modern global culture, and today when you see people wearing traditional costumes in Germany, they could be women in hijabs, men in turbans or yarmulke, or women in saris or traditional African fabrics, or in dirndls.
Based on the regions our four interviewees Anneliese, Barbara, Alma and Lisa came from, it is highly unlikely that any of them were wearing dirndls or other kind of traditional garb when they arrived in Canada in the early 1950s.
Germany was a modern European country, both before and after World War II, and most likely the four women wore modern clothes of their time, as depicted in Alexander Freund's book Aufbrüche nach dem Zusammenbruch, which translates to Departures after the Collapse, and documents German immigration to North America after World War II.
A few young women and a young man stick out for wearing fashionable 1950s trousers, haircuts, boldly striped t-shirts and even aviator sunglasses.
Humans have been wearing clothing since our species began to develop. Not having protective fur like other animals, we needed to find other ways to cover our bodies against rain, cold and sun. During our existence, humans had to endure at least two ice ages, each one lasting hundreds of thousands of years. They survived these times by migrating to habitable regions and by creating clothing that protected them from the elements.
Studies of the evolution of body lice show that humans have been wearing clothes for more than 170,000 years. These parasites live on human blood and need the heat of our body to survive and thrive. Clothing is ideal to keep human body temperature constant.
The first pieces of garment were most likely fur, leather, grass or other plant materials draped, wrapped or tied around the body. Shoes were made from leather, often stuffed with grass for insulation.
As soon as the sewing needle was invented, about 50,000 years ago, humans were able to sew those loose pieces of clothing together and provide for tighter fitting clothes and better heat insulation. And happier lice.
Linen is one of the oldest textiles in the world, dating back at least 36,000 years. As soon as the processing technique of weaving was invented, about 32,000 years ago, the fibers of the flax plant could be woven into fabric.
Spinning, weaving and dyeing cotton dates back at least 6,000 years, as archaeological evidence from the Americas and Asia prove.
Wool was not used before the breeding of sheep with woolly fleece, about 5,000 years ago, roughly five millennia after the domestication of sheep. The production of silk began around the same time in Neolithic China.
Although they are by no means scientific documents, both the Bible and the Quran mention Adam and Eve, or Hawa, hiding their shame by sewing fig leaves together to cover their private parts. Later in the Old Testament, Rebekah puts goat skin around her son Jacob's hands, which might be the first description of mittens. These descriptions in the Old Testament date back to around 900 BCE.
The earliest mention of clothing in Hinduism is the Rig Veda, a book of hymns from around 3000 BCE, and mentions spinning cotton to create a sari or a strip of cloth.
These examples may seem old, but they are young compared to one of the earliest depictions in art of a human wearing threaded clothes, the Venus of Lespugue, a statuette carved from tusk ivory, found in France, and at least 25,000 years old.
But compared with the more than 300,000 years of Homo sapiens walking on planet Earth, all of that was recent history.
Yet humans wanted more than just protective, functional clothes. They experimented with fabrics, added patterns, began to decorate their clothing. They playfully applied shells and wooden beads, or carved bones to their garments and shoes.
They had fun combining different materials. They wanted to stand out, display their personality, surround themselves with beauty, and thus invented fashion without even thinking about it.
Early on, fabrics were traded over long distances on every continent. However, certain materials, fabrics and garments, were reserved for the privileged. Linen and silk were luxury items only the rich could afford.
Clergy and nobility excluded the lower classes from owning or wearing such clothes. The purple stripe on Roman togas, extracted from sea snails, was extremely expensive and exclusive to senators and later dignitaries of the Catholic Church.
As soon as societal strata developed, different castes and classes wore different clothes, or were forced to wear them, respectively. This differentiation did not stop with layers of society. Many professions had special and often uniformed garments. This often had to do with practicality or safety. For example, thick leather aprons for blacksmiths, protecting the worker from the heat and sharp objects.
Out of those professional garments developed folk costumes, or Trachten, especially in rural areas, showing the wearer's occupation, religious affiliation, or ethnicity. For millennia, fashion styles tended to last for decades or even centuries, often influenced by the dominant powers of the era. Prominent examples were the Romans, or more than a thousand years later, the Spanish.
The more enlightened and progressive human societies became, the less there was a need for clothing codes and restrictions. The French Revolution caused, without doubt, some of the most profound early breaks with traditions: away with wigs and breeches, and repressions by the church and aristocracy.
The advent of the 20th century came with new artificial materials, often made from fossil fuels. New synthetic fibers allowed for faster and cheaper production of clothes. In the late 1920s, when Lisa, Alma, Barbara, and Anneliese were little girls, nylons started to compete successfully with silk. Plastic buttons replaced wood, mother of pearl, and other materials.
And maybe most revolutionary: women began to wear trousers, something that was unheard of and even scandalous up until the early 1970s. It all began with women working in arms factories during World War I. Wearing skirts and aprons would have been impractical and even dangerous, so they wore coveralls that their male colleagues had been wearing. But the real breakthrough for women's pants were yachting pants, and the androgynous garçon style, both designed by Coco Chanel in the 1920s.
Of course, the House of Chanel produces couture, custom-made, one-of-a-kind garments that are handcrafted for individual clients. Ready-to-wear, mass-produced clothing sold in standard sizes emerged in Europe in the mid-19th century due to the capabilities of the Industrial Revolution, which made clothing more accessible to the working class. Couture pieces are expensive due to their bespoke nature and high level of craftsmanship, whereas ready-to-wear is more affordable.
Hauvogteiplatz in the center of Berlin had become the center of German ready-to-wear fashion from the 1830s until the Nazi takeover. Jewish manufacturers, designers, and merchants exported mass-produced fashion to other European countries and even the United States.
In 1927, more than 800 companies produced clothing in Berlin. This success story ended in 1933 with the forced sale and Aryanization of Jewish-owned companies. In other words, the de facto stealing and takeover of German-Jewish property by non-Jewish Germans.
1930s fascist movements around the world, from America to the United Kingdom, but most prominently in Germany, Italy, and Spain, inspired a new fashion style. Uniforms and the reinstallment of traditional patriarchal roles and garbs: dresses and skirts for women, pants and jackets for men. Then Germany started World War II.
When it was over, our four interviewees were teenagers, or in their early 20s, respectively, and millions of people were dead and not a lot of things were left intact. But necessities were at the forefront. That means, similar to 300,000 years ago, people needed clothes to survive the harsh post-war winters.
German women clearing bomb damage in cities known as Trümmerfrauen, or “rubble women,” wore heavily patched or modified clothing, including trousers from deceased soldiers, in order to do their work.
In August 1946, the first care packages arrived in Germany.
While those first packages contained redistributed rations of tinned food, originally meant for U.S. Army soldiers, soon came wool packages with skeins of wool to knit sweaters, socks, and mittens, blanket packages with two army blankets, sewing kits, and shoe soles, and cotton packages with 11 meters of cotton fabric. This ultimately led to, as Munich newspaper Heute wrote in 1947, the comeback of fashion, and they provided suggestions of how to turn those blankets into fashionable skirts and coats.
As the war ended, the fashion industry began to recover, and one of the first post-war fashion magazines in Germany, Berlin's Modenblatt, was launched, promoting creativity and hope through fashion.
As a matter of fact, every available scrap of fabric was used for clothing. Naturally, there was a surplus of army coats and uniforms, which were cut up, cleaned, and dyed. Curtains, drapes, tablecloths, bedsheets, down blankets were transformed into shirts, blouses, suits, and used for warm, protective, and, yes, fashionable jackets, pants, dresses, coats, and more. There were even wedding dresses sewn from parachutes made of nylon or silk.
And then, in February 1947, two and a half years after the liberation of Paris from German occupation, fashion designer Christian Dior presented his New Look at his studios in Paris.
To quote Vogue magazine, “the New Look marked a turning point in fashion history and set the course for post-war fashion, although it was less novel than nostalgic.”
The silhouette changed from straight lines and boxy shoulders to, “curving feminine bosoms linked up with curving feminine hips by slender molded waist”, as one reporter wrote.
This internationally popular new fashion also influenced German fashion, featuring softer shoulders, cinched waists, and full, voluminous skirts, often worn with petticoats. The term New Look was likely coined by Carmel Snow, who was at the time writing for Harper's Bazaar. Dior himself had named his collection "la ligne corolle," referring to an inverted flower.
And like flowers, clothes were colorful.
However, not everyone was enamored of the New Look. Some people voiced concerns about the obscene amount of fabric, from 25 to 40 meters, used to create Dior's New Look fashions.
Although the four women liked clothes, and may even have dressed in the style of the new look, their skirts and jackets, blouses and dresses were probably still sewn from durable fabric repurposed from curtains, old army coats, blankets, or parachutes. Couture dresses were certainly not in the suitcases that Alma, Barbara, Anneliese, or Lisa carried when they emigrated to Canada in the early 1950s.
Anneliese: "And I had two big suitcases, it wasn’t suitcases, what do you call those, like wicker baskets, those real old-fashioned things, and they were heavy. Because I almost had the limit of what I could take of personal things.”
Sometimes new immigrants had to face unexpected fashion choices, as Barbara pointed out in her interview with Alexander Freund in 1993.
Barbara: "My first day on the job was the second of January and my first job was to clean out two fireplaces, with the ashes and all those things. I was given a uniform to wear. Little black thing and little white thing and thank God they didn’t have to have a crown for me [laughs]. I don’t think I did. Anyway, that was a shock for me, because that was something I had to get used to.
[Alexander] What exactly?
To the uniform, to wearing a housemaid's uniform.
[Alexander] Why was it a shock?
A-- yes. Because I didn’t like the uniform. It was not very flattering to me. And it was also a black dress that was very elderly and washed out and faded and I just didn’t like myself in that outfit. And I didn’t see why I should wear something like that. But anyway, that was a shock to me. Well, a surprise, an unpleasant surprise, not a shock maybe, shock is too stark a word. But that was number one. And of course, I accepted that and everything is fine. Only that was a surprise.”
And while post-war Canada was flooded with cheaply made, imported clothing from Asia and the U.S., some Canadian designers sought to create a unique, recognizable identity for Canadian-made clothing, founding the Association of Canadian Couturiers in 1954.
That year, the Association produced the first all-Canadian fashion show in New York, and from there on in, they presented fashion shows in major Canadian cities twice a year, with the assistance of government and textile manufacturers.
Through the last decades of the 20th century and into the 21st, Canada's entire fashion industry has become increasingly designer focused. Today, the majority of Canadian apparel companies are owned by Canadians. 75 percent of the workforce are women, and an estimated 50 percent are newly arrived immigrants.
Anneliese: “Here they dress more sloppy than when they go to Germany, where everything is so perfectly dressed. But at that time, it was-- And the quality thing—clothes, they were cheap and you threw them out after a while, while in Germany you bought things which were solid and clothes last for years and years and years. All these little things, it was discussed among us or have to get used to it, to different values in life. You know, things you bought. It wasn’t necessarily that you buy the best and solid and you pay for it right away. When I think of it, that took a lot of adjusting.”
This was part 4 of a series of podcasts accompanying the interviews of “What They Can Teach Us”: What They Were Wearing, researched, written, produced, and read by me, Frank Brückner.
This ongoing series will add new podcasts in irregular intervals, so stay tuned for What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast and check back regularly for new episodes.

Feast your ears on this episode about food history in Germany and Canada. Host Frank Brückner talks traditional German dishes, food rationing in the postwar period, and migrants adjusting to the cuisine of a new country.
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Cover art by Alexe Normandin.
Jingle music composed by Frank Brückner. All other sounds and voices (except for the interviews of What They Can Teach Us): © Frank Brückner
Source Links:
Eine Stunde Restaurant-Hintergrundgeräusche
Furtwängler conducting Mozart's Don Giovanni Overture Salzburg 1954 (In Colour)
Kalenderblatt: 20.6.1948 Die D-Mark kommt. Einführung der  Deutschen Mark  in den westlichen Besatzungszonen
Trizonesien-Song  - De facto national anthem of Allied-occupied Germany
Seagull sounds
Beaverbrae food storage quote: Wanted On Voyage: MIGRANT BEAVER-- D.E.V. BEAVERBRAE
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Transcript: 
Rehrücken…Pfälzer Saumagen…Ochsenmaulsalat...Spargel mit Kartoffeln und Butter...Blutwurst...Schäufele...Handkäs mit Musik...Bismarckhering…Stutenkerl...Rote Grütze…Rauchbier…Schwäbische Maultaschen…Frankfurter Rindswurst…Thüringer Rostbratwürste…Leipziger Allerlei…Riesling und Roggenmischbrot.
All of these are traditional German dishes, coming from various regions of the country. They range from deer roast to blood sausage to white asparagus with potatoes and butter to spicy sour milk cheese and smoked beer. Surprised? German cuisine is so much more than the cliché bratwurst and sauerkraut with a frosty Bierstein or a glass of sweet Riesling wine.
Welcome to What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast. My name is Frank Brückner and I created the series to provide additional context to the website “What They Can Teach Us”, which was developed from interviews with four women who immigrated from Germany to Canada in the early 1950s. The website and podcasts were initiated and are supported by the Chair in German-Canadian Studies at the University of Winnipeg.
In these podcasts you will learn what life was like in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Barbara, Lisa, Alma and Anneliese, like so many of our parents and grandparents, left Germany and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to begin their lives anew in Canada.
This is part 2 of a series of short podcasts accompanying the interviews of “What They Can Teach Us”: What They Were Eating. Let's get a taste of it!
When Barbara, Lisa, Alma and Anneliese, like so many of our parents and grandparents, immigrated from Germany to Canada in the early 1950s, they would have had a hard time finding dishes they were accustomed to eating in the old country, certainly not in a restaurant. And if they wanted to cook it themselves, many of the ingredients would have been difficult to find.
They shared a similar experience with many immigrants to Canada in the 1950s. Imagine a French person searching for one of the incredible variety of cheeses in France. Or someone from India missing the spices of their homeland.
Despite all these delicious dishes mentioned in the beginning, if there's one thing that native Germans would miss once they moved abroad, it is bread. There are about 3,000 types of bread in Germany, more than in any other country in the world.
Bread is ingrained in daily life. A typical day starts with a few slices of bread topped with cheese, cold cuts or jams, and it ends with Abendbrot, which literally translates to “evening bread”. Even now, it can still be very hard to find a loaf of good bread that would satisfy a German bread lover's sensitive palate.
Luckily, more than 70 years after Lisa, Alma, Barbara and Anneliese arrived, thanks to globalization, many foods, spices and other ingredients have become available in Canada. Even delicious German bread can be found, made here by Canadian bakers.
Roggenmischbrot…Roggenmischbrot…Roggenmischbrot…Roggenmischbrot… Roggenmischbrot…Roggenmischbrot.
The situation was very different around the time our four protagonists arrived in Canada. Immediately after the war, food was rationed, and millions of people in Europe suffered hunger, many of them dying of starvation.
In Germany, they could not afford to be picky to stay alive. Hoarding of goods, black markets, theft and even prostitution were more rule than exception. For many, Bertolt Brecht's quotation from his 1928 Threepenny Opera rang true: erst kommt das Fressen, dann die Moral. First comes a full stomach, then comes ethics.
People used manual coffee grinders to turn dried potato skins into powder, which was used, along with salt and water, to bake long-lasting potato crisp bread. Acorns and chestnuts, collected in parks and forests, underwent time-consuming procedures to turn them into usable flour.
They made fake cocoa powder from red turnips and sugar and “ersatz coffee” from roasted barley. They didn't match the taste of the originals, but during wartime, creature comforts make people feel human again.
Although these clever solutions staved off hunger, the nutritional value of these makeshift meals was often very low. Finally, after more than ten years, food rationing was lifted in Germany in 1950.
Even in Canada, food was rationed between 1942 and 1947. An adult received food ration stamps to purchase: one cup of sugar – half of what the average Canadian eats today; two ounces of tea or eight ounces of coffee; 113 grams of butter; about 800 grams of meat, little more than 100 grams per day. That was a weekly ration. But by the end of the 1940s, everything was available again in Canada.
It took a few more years in Germany, and a major boost was the Währungsreform from 1948.
[News report] Überall Schlangen. Rekordschlangen. Mit der Währungsreform wurde übernacht auch das Obst reif. In den Schaufenstern dasselbe Bild: die Regale füllen sich, die Lager geben her, was so lange nicht zu haben waren.
The Währungsreform, or currency reform, was the most significant event in post-war Germany. After the capitulation of Nazi Germany, the four Allied forces, unable to agree on a common monetary strategy, issued occupation currency for each of their respective zones.
In 1948, the bi-zone of the Western Allies, the United States and the British, was joined by the French, forming a tri-zone. To prevent a second hyperinflation in western Germany, they decided to introduce a stable currency, which would become the famous Deutsche Mark. The new money was printed in America, shipped to Bremerhaven, transported by train to Frankfurt, and from there distributed to jurisdictions in western Germany.
On June 21, 1948, the Deutsche Mark became the only valid currency in western Germany. Shops that had shut their doors a few days earlier, often with signs announcing renovations, reopened and many shop windows were filled with chocolate, toiletries, cigarettes and, of course, food.
Although this conversion was not always smooth, it marked the beginning of the admired Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle. The tri-zone, or Trizonesien, even had a humorous song which became something like the unofficial national anthem of the day.
[Anthem plays]
The new and easy availability of culinary delicacies after years of austerity even led to early warnings about healthy eating and body weight. However, that was certainly not the case during our four heroines’ journey.
Alma and Anneliese and over 33,000 other people crossed the Atlantic, heading to Canada on the Beaverbrae, an old cargo ship that held more than 700 passengers. On every westward voyage, the Beaverbrae stored, quote, 10 tons of potatoes, 9 tons of fresh meat, 3 tons of smoked meat, 7 tons of pasta, 4 tons of vegetables, 7 [sic] tons of butter and cheese, 300 jars of baby food, 10 tons of sugar, 1 ton of jams, 16,000 chocolate bars and 36,000 bags of candy, end quote.
Passengers on the Beaverbrae could expect three big hot meals a day, including meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This was something many passengers had not experienced since before the war.
American bacon was new to them, but travelers were often seasick and were barely able to eat anything. And when they finally arrived, they were happy to set foot on steady land and grateful for every lunch packet that was given to them on their way west or wherever their next destination was.
The new arrivals had to adapt to new diets, new ingredients, new ways of cooking, but they also used their knowledge about the cuisine of the old country to reinvent traditional recipes. Following are the German dishes mentioned throughout this podcast. Can you think of any Canadian foods that may have their roots in these specialties from the old country?
Rehrücken. Deer roast.
Pfälzer Saumagen. Pork stomach stuffed with potatoes and pork, usually spiced with onions, marjoram, nutmeg and white pepper.
Ochsenmaulsalat. Salad with beef from a cow's muzzle and a vinaigrette.
Spargel mit Kartoffeln und Butter. Juicy white asparagus with potatoes and butter.
Blutwurst. Blood sausage.
Schäufele. Franconian roast made from a pig's shoulder meat.
Handkäs mit Musik. Small, translucent, yellow sour milk cheese with a pungent aroma.
Bismarckherring. Pickled herring.
Stutenkerl. Pastry made of sweet, leavened dough in the form of a man.
Rote Grütze. Sweet fruit dish from northern Germany and Denmark.
Rauchbier. Smoked beer.
Schwäbische Maultaschen. Large meat or vegetable-filled dumplings from Swabia.
Frankfurter Rindswurst. Beef sausage from Frankfurt.
Thüringer Rostbratwürste. Thin spicy sausage from Thuringia.
Leipziger Allerlei. Vegetable dish from Leipzig.
Riesling. Aromatic, flowery and dry. World-class white wine. Sweet Riesling is virtually unknown in Germany.
Roggenmischbrot. Rye wheat bread.
Guten Appetit!
The voices belong to the actors: Emily Beer, Los Angeles. Björn Ole Blunk, Berlin. Frank Brückner, Winnipeg. Stefan Goldbach, Portland. Alexandra Leitenbauer, Berlin. And Kaja Zestahen, Meissen.
This ongoing series will add new podcasts in irregular intervals, so stay tuned for What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast and check back regularly for new episodes.

Mosey into this melodic episode exploring the pre- and postwar music scene in Germany and the kinds of music that Anneliese, Alma, Barbara and Lisa and others of their generation would have been listening to in their youth and in their lives abroad.
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Cover graphic by Alexe Normandin.
Jingle music composed by Frank Brückner. All other sounds and voices (except for the interviews of What They Can Teach Us): © Frank Brückner
Source links:
Music searches
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=musik+in+deutschland+1951&atb=v355-1&ia=web
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=music+in+canada+1951&atb=v355-1&ia=we
1950s, français, hits
1951, français, divers
Radio Tuning FX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2qShK5lZOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pumgHCBx9iY
WW2 sound collage collected from various sources and assembled by Frank Brückner:
Normandy, The Airborne Invasion of Fortress Europe
Sirenenalarm im Zweiten Weltkrieg - Berlin 1945   Fm Si 41
Ju87 Stuka Dive Bombers in Action with Sound and Sirens WW2 Luftwaffe Footage
SR 2 – Der Klang des Jahrhunderts: Hier ist England (1938)
Comedian Harmonists - In einem kühlen Grunde
Glenn Miller – In The Mood
Duke Ellington –  Jam With Sam
Yves Montand –  Les Grands Boulevards
Jo Stafford – You Belong To Me
Die Kleine Cornelia (Conny Froebess) – Pack die Badehose ein
Rudi Schuricke – Capri Fischer
Peter Alexander - Das machen nur die Beine von Dolores
Marlene Dietrich - Muss I denn
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Transcript:
[Music plays]
Our past isn't just black and white pictures and dates in the history book. The past is colorful and cinematic, musical and moving, dreadful and wonderful, just like today.
Welcome to What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast. My name is Frank Brückner and I created this series to provide additional context to the website “What They Can Teach Us”, which was developed from interviews with four women who immigrated from Germany to Canada in the early 1950s. The website and podcasts were initiated and are supported by the Chair in German-Canadian Studies at the University of Winnipeg.
In these podcasts you will learn what life was like in the late 1940s and early 1950s when Barbara, Lisa, Alma and Anneliese, like so many of our parents and grandparents, left Germany and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to begin their lives anew in Canada.
This is part 1: What They Were Listening To. Let's dive right in.
This episode started with a bang, literally. What you heard was a collage of actual sounds from World War II, ending with the last line of an old German folk song from the 1800s, recorded in 1932 by the Comedian Harmonists.
It says, ich möchte am liebsten sterben/dann wäre es auf einmal still, which roughly translates to, I would rather be dead, only then it would finally be quiet. Although the song is about a broken heart, the sentiment expressed in those last words might have been exactly what many people felt during this horrible war. And then the war ended, and it was quiet indeed. Well, not really.
Nazi Germany was beaten and conquered, and the music of the liberation in western Europe was swing. After 12 years of a brutal dictatorship that imprisoned people, or worse, for listening to what the Nazis called degenerate music, Germans enjoyed the new freedom to listen to whatever they wanted to.
And along with the American, British, French and Canadian occupying forces came military radio stations, broadcasting the hit tunes from back home.
[Music plays]
As swing became less fashionable, music changed, but the topics remained the same. Love, longing, and even everyday themes such as this song from 1951 about packing your swim trunks and going for a swim in Berlin's Lake Wannsee, sung by an eight-year-old girl from Berlin.
[Music plays]
After years of deprivations and restrictions, Germans weren't satisfied with a vacation at home. They were longing to travel to sunny southern Europe, particularly Italy and Spain, this time as peaceful vacationers. A good number of songs show this yearning.
[Music plays]
Others felt the urge to leave Germany and Europe behind altogether and start life anew far, far away. Thousands left for Canada, Australia and the United States, some as war brides on the arms of Allied soldiers, others chasing the dreams of streets paved with gold.
But despite their hopes for a new beginning, many carried the sorrow of saying farewell. No song describes this feeling better than Marlene Dietrich's interpretation of the old German folk song, “Muss i denn.”
[Music plays]
This ongoing series will add new podcasts in irregular intervals, so stay tuned for What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast and check back regularly for new episodes.

Produced in collaboration with the University of Winnipeg's Chair in German-Canadian Studies, we present: What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast! Host Frank Brückner introduces you to the web resource, What They Can Teach Us, featuring interviews with four German immigrant women who came to Canada in the 1950s. Using historical research mixed with interview excerpts, he will guide you through topics such as Music, Food, Film and Fashion and how they relate to the lives of Alma, Barbara, Lisa and Anneliese.
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Cover graphic by Alexe Normandin.
Jingle music composed by Frank Brückner. All other sounds and voices (except for the interviews of What They Can Teach Us): © Frank Brückner
Source Links:
Furtwängler conducting Mozart's Don Giovanni Overture Salzburg 1954 (In Colour)
Heinz Rühmann & Hans Albers – Jawoll, meine Herren
Tanker blasting foghorn
Seagull sounds
Guy Mitchell – My Truly, Truly Fair
Schwarzwaldmädel (film)
She Walks In Beauty - Fashion Show at Savoy Hotel, Pt. 2 (1951)
The Sound of Steam Trains
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Transcript:
The past. Black and white photos. Stiff looking people. And important dates in a history book. Dead. Long ago. Boring. Or was it?
Nothing could be further from the truth. The past was as colorful and cinematic, musical and moving, dreadful and wonderful as our life is today.
Welcome to What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast. A series of short podcasts of varying lengths providing additional context to the website “What They Can Teach Us”. You will learn what life was like in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Barbara, Lisa, Alma and Anneliese, like so many of our parents and grandparents, immigrated from Germany to Canada.
They listened and danced to the pop music of their day, the mid-century equivalent to modern day's R&B and rock music.
[Soundtrack]
They left behind a food culture which was very different from Canadian food culture. Oxenmaulsalat. Spargel mit Kartoffeln und Butter. Blutwurst. Schäufele. Handkäs mit Musik.
They came from a country with a highly developed film industry to one that was still in its early stages.
[Movie dialogue in German]
And, of course, they were interested in fashion. Yes, people in those black and white pictures were actually wearing colorful clothes.
[Advertisement]
Each podcast focuses on one specific topic. That means you can listen to the podcasts in no particular order or without having to follow a storyline.
These podcasts might inspire you to investigate your own family's history: where they came from and when, and what they experienced. Moving from one country and culture to another is a big adventure and often requires a lot of courage and strength.
Humankind has always been on the move. And the regular arrival of newcomers in our global communities opens new horizons, offers new philosophies and fresh perspectives on our familiar way of life. We experience new spices and smells, as well as new music, film, fashion and food.
In a nutshell, immigration enriches us culturally and makes a country and a society strong and resilient.
This ongoing series will add new podcasts in irregular intervals, so stay tuned for What They Can Teach Us: The Podcast. And check back regularly for new episodes.