Breaking barriers

Gwendolyn Morgan Kluge arrived in Germany long before the Berlin Wall, which separated East and West Germany, came down in 1989.

In over 50 years, the octogenarian not only became the first black woman in her city to own and run a business, but she did so successfully and has built a Jamaican town in that country.

In 2016, about 51,000 persons were living Emden – a port town in East Frisia, the most northwestern part of Germany. Gwendolyn and her family were among them.

In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner from Germany, she told a story of resilience, hard work, commitment and dedication to family that brought her recognition in the rural area. She epitomised how a desperate need for a better life for her children fuelled an appetite for resilience, taking her to places she had never gone before and making her do things she had never done before.

“I was looking for a way to make a better life for me and my kids. I separated from their father and I was alone with them, so I was looking [for] a better place to raise them as a single mother. All this time I was looking a job, and my friend Bibby (Beryl Minott), who was already living [in Germany], invited me to come and I accepted,” she recalled of her first sojourn.

Gwendolyn was no stranger to travelling, as she previously visited Canada, England and France, but when she accepted the invitation from Bibby in 1968, she was early along in her pregnancy with a fifth child, a boy.

Although pregnant, she was seeking a job, but only work in factories was available, which was not ideal for her.

She decided to return to Jamaica and her son, Raglan, was born in January 1969.

The following months saw various “disputes with the father of my five children, which forced me to leave my home and children for a few months”, she recalled.

In 1970 and in a new relationship, she became pregnant again. Her sixth child, Neville, was born in September that year and began living with her new partner. Her youngest daughter, Charmaine, also lived with them while the other four children remained with their father. He would seek help from a grandparent, which underscored the role of grandparents in the Jamaican family structure.

“Eventually, he brought them to stay with their grandmother for a few months. I rented a room in Spanish Town at my brother Oswald’s house for them to stay. By 1971, I moved back to Spanish Town and was united with my children, but things weren’t working out financially. Being a single mother of six, we were experiencing very difficult times,” she recounted.

Return to Germany

Fate would see Bibby visit Jamaica and contact her. She offered to pay Gwendolyn’s travel expenses back to Germany and she accepted willingly.

As an English speaker, she could get jobs as a waitress, barmaid or hostess, which were in high demand at exhibitions, concerts, regattas, shows, fairs and expositions in the port towns, which would welcome foreigners from across Europe.

Bibby returned to Germany before her and was not at the airport to receive Gwendolyn in Germany, so the authorities sent her back to England.

Not giving up and determined to contact Bibby, she booked the last flight from London to Frankfurt, Germany, the same evening. She was not about to come this far and turn back.

“During this flight, I made friends with two white American girls and a group of stunt motorbike riders, who were also on their way to Hamburg via Frankfurt. We, the girls, had little or no money and were in need of somewhere to sleep. We were only allowed to sleep overnight in a hotel because we offered to do room cleaning and kitchen duties the next morning,” she recalled.

She finally found Bibby.

She explained that working without a work permit was risky and meant having no health insurance.

Bibby put her in touch with her employment agent and they offered her a working contract, but she would have to return to Jamaica to apply for the residence permit. She hustled to come back, without a permit.

“I saved as much money as I could and booked a return flight to Jamaica. After applying for the resident permit, I collected it and returned to Germany. I settled in a small town called Emden, and travelled from there to work in other towns, returning to Jamaica every three months. In May of 1973, I had my official residence permit in Germany,” she told The Sunday Gleaner.

That’s when she began planting a tree that would bring success.

Working hard, saving harder

While working as a barmaid in the port towns and at annual town fairs and festivities throughout Germany, she made enough money to hire a helper to manage the affairs of her household in Jamaica. She built a small three-bedroom house in Spanish Town with her six children and younger sister, Miriam, living there.

Gwendolyn worked hard, and she saved even harder.

She recalled how other black workers from Africa also worked in the port towns, but their English was not very fluent and they became jealous of her and other black folks from England and France.

She moved in with a friend, but not for long and eventually rented a cellar room. She had one bed and a chair, and boiled water in a pan to bathe if there was no money to pay for hot water via a coin machine.

She took her first daughter after settling in Emden.

“I was able to take my eldest daughter Marjorie in 1978. In October 1980, during the height of the election violence in Jamaica and elections that same month, my eldest son, Barry, came. By the latter part of 1981, my other four children – Everton, Charmaine, Raglan and Neville – came. The children had to be here before they reached the age of 18 in order to get their residence permit,” she explained.

Germany renewed residence permits annually and one had to reside in the country for eight years before being granted permanent stay. A working permit was only granted conditionally, and only after having both, was one qualified to apply for German citizenship, she stated.

“My children and I mainly resided in Emden. The languages proved to be a challenge at first, but we were fast learners. We were surprised that some of the people we met were having their first close encounter with a black family. There was curiosity and racial confrontation at first, but being Jamaican was a cause for awe. We became very popular in the years that followed,” she told The Sunday Gleaner.

Her son Barrington recalled how he navigated the language by writing down words daily, and before going to bed at night, he would study the words. He became fluent in German in no time, and after eight months, he was in school with German children.

They either walked to school or took the bus. The school was about a kilometre away.

A graduate of St Catherine High School, he said praised the local education system, saying, “Jamaica still has some of the best teachers and the soundest education system anywhere.”

He was advised to do anything and everything mechanical as Germany desperately needed those skills – and so he did.

He recalled encountering snow for the first time, becoming snow-blind, and encountering racism.

Easy to integrate

Gwendolyn said the German social system offers many benefits such as free education and child welfare, and made it easy to integrate.

By 1987, the years of travelling within Germany for work and working far away from her children took its toll and she decided to work for herself.

“I decided to use my experience and open my own business. At first, everyone was sceptical about my plan, but I believed in myself. After a few months of searching, I finally acquired a small pub located at a traffic light on the main road and named it ‘At The Traffic Light’. I could hardly believe my luck. That small establishment became a point of gathering. It was the best move I ever made, and it was here that I met my future husband. We got married four years later,” she said, adding that he is now deceased.

The success of the business was beyond everyone’s expectations as the previous white operators were not making money and closed operations. Located almost next door to a disco, the pub drew a huge crowd. German officials, were reluctant to grant a business permit as they were sceptical of its success and the owner was receiving huge sums for rental.

In most families then, once a relative made it overseas, they would often “send for” other kin in Jamaica. Gwendolyn was no different. In 1989, she decided to help close relatives from the island, hoping to have them enjoy a better life. The decision was to get three close family members here, and they were then later able to take their closest family members with them. What the United States would decades later describe as “chain migration” began step by step with family.

The increase in non-European immigrants (some unauthorised) caused the German government to tighten integration laws and entry conditions became more strenuous for other foreigners and their relatives.

In 1995, Gwendolyn took on a new challenge and opened My Gwen.

“I used my savings to buy myself a house, with a pub and kiosk attached. I moved in with my two youngest children. The remote location away from the town seemed risky at first, but my resilient nature paid off and once again, I made very good progress. In 1999, I retired for good and handed over the management to my son Raglan,” she told The Sunday Gleaner.

She continues to contribute financially to her family and now has a second house in Spanish Town, where she allows homeless children to stay.

She did not escape unscrupulous persons in her encounters and valuable building materials and personal belongings have been stolen. Although this delayed completion, she kept going, doing good and helping others.

Her six children, 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren; sister and brother-in-law with three daughters, one son, and six grandchildren, one niece with a daughter; another has four boys and one girl, plus grandnieces and grandnephews now make up a significant part of Emden and represent the Jamaican motto – ‘Out of Many, One People’. Their roots extend from Jamaica to Germany, Ethiopia, Ghana, Benin, Albania, Hungary, Finland, Turkey, Nigeria, Poland, Peru, China, Kazakhstan, Russia and Cuba.

She also achieved her goal of a better life for her children.

Marjorie is a certified beautician and podiatrist; Barrington is an engineer and European project and quality manager; Everton is a mechanical medical engineer; Charmaine is a teacher; Raglan is an aviation quality manager; and Neville is a shipbuilding engineer.

The now-80-year-old Gwendolyn Morgan Kluge spends most of her time in Jamaica, but still travels to Germany, mainly for medical care. When she is there, her children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews and in-laws are never far away.

She will be celebrated at the 10th biennial conference of the diaspora this month, along with her family.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com