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Migration affects everyone, regardless of their biography.
It is the norm and helps to shape society.

Nevertheless, the perspectives of migrants, their descendants, black people and people of colour are often ignored in the German culture of remembrance. 

Museum Selma makes them visible and invites visitors to change their perspective.

We show how migration has inscribed itself in German history and how it shapes the way we all live together in society. In doing so, we are retelling the history of this country - in many voices.

The centrepiece of the museum is the unique DOMiD collection - the largest collection of objects and testimonies on the diverse history of migration in Germany in Germany. In contrast to state archives, the collection has grown ‘from the bottom up’, i.e. from civil society.

It thus preserves the cultural heritage of migration in Germany - in a unique fund of everyday migrant testimonies that are not documented anywhere else in this abundance. 

The collection comprises over 150,000 objects: from documents and photographs to works of art, interviews, video recordings, everyday objects and much more. It documents the diverse history of the migration society in Germany since 1945.

typewriter with English and Korean characters
In 1960, the first typewriter with English and Korean characters was produced in Korea. The model was called ‘Gong’. The paediatrician and radiologist Dr Sukil Lee used this typewriter to write all his correspondence for the recruitment of Korean nurses in the 1960s.
DOMiD-Archiv, Köln

The collection covers all forms of migration in Germany, including internal migration, such as from the GDR to the FRG, as well as all regions of origin and migration motifs. The collection thus offers numerous points of reference on topics such as labour, flight, expulsion and life in several places.

A brief insight into the unique collection of (post)migrant stories

  1. The photo shows knotted elastic bands wrapped in red and white patterned fabric.
    During his escape, the owner of this memento travelled from Turkey to Greece on a boat. To protect themselves from the water and the cold, the fugitives tied their trouser legs together.
    DOMiD-Archiv, Köln
  2. A blue lab coat used by workers at Volkswagen.
    Italian Lorenzo Annese was the first ‘guest worker’ to be elected Chairman of the Works Council in Germany. This lab coat documents his time at VW.
    DOMiD-Archiv, Köln
  3. The picture shows a pair of metal scissors with a fixed finger hook and signs of rust and wear.
    In order to improve their income and support their families in Vietnam, many Vietnamese ‘contract workers’ sewed clothes, especially jeans, for GDR citizens in their spare time.
    DOMiD-Archiv, Köln
  4. A brown leather case whose outer skin is made up of many different pieces of leather.
    A student left Ghana with this suitcase in 1979 after a military coup. She went to Freiburg to study. She used the suitcase again and again on her subsequent trips to Ghana.