BERLIN: The motorbike, a present for the one-millionth guest worker, is displayed at the exhibition titled Multicultural Germany, a country of immigration in Berlin Germany on Friday.

Germany’s main national history museum is exploring six decades of immigration into the country, from the arrival of the first southern European guest workers to today’s migrant influx from the Arab world and elsewhere.

The show opens on Saturday. It starts with West Germany’s recruitment of guest workers from 1955 to help boost economic reconstruction. It ends with present-day Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

Hans Huetter, head of the Bonn-based museum of post-war German history that produced the exhibition, says it shows “Germany is a country of immigration, even if political leaders for a long time didn’t say that or perhaps didn’t want to know it.”

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2016