In Part 2 of our documentary, DW reporter Guilherme Becker travels to Blumenau in the federal state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. This town was founded in the jungle in 1850 by Hermann Blumenau, a pharmacist from the Harz region in Germany. The city quickly became a symbol for German immigration to Brazil, and to this day, Blumenau hosts the world’s second largest Oktoberfest every year. But one thing is distinctly missing in Blumenau: Remembrance of the indigenous groups that lived here before the colonizers came, who were almost entirely wiped out in bloody conflicts with the settlers.
In a remote area, DW reporter Guilherme Becker visits an indigenous community. In a moving interview, archaeologist and historical anthropologist Walderes Pripra explains what the colonization meant for the indigenous peoples of the Laklãnõ-Xokleng, Kaingang and Guaraní, and how they still suffer to this day. She also speaks about her efforts to revive indigenous cultures and languages.
Guilherme Becker also goes looking for answers on why his family of German origin no longer speaks German, the role the National Socialists played in this, as well as the consequences of that period for his family - especially his grandmother Ida, who emigrated to Brazil with her foster parents in 1925, and had to leave her siblings behind. In São Paulo, Guilherme also visits the Jewish Museum, where he finds out more about Jewish people fleeing to Brazil and the support they received, after the National Socialists seized power in Germany .
Back in Berlin, Guilherme meets the Brazilian nurse Thaiana Santos, who works at the Charité University Hospital as one of many skilled workers that Germany is now actively recruiting - like 200 years ago, when German immigrants were being recruited by what was then the Brazilian Empire.