December 2000 - Nr. 13
A Canadian Original
The people of Kitchener think up quite a few most original venues, original for North America that is. Let’s take the Oktoberfest for instance. Of course, the original is at home in Munich, Germany, but the world’s second largest festival carrying that name is held annually in Kitchener. That’s right!
The most famous Christmas Markets are also to be found in Germany; and who would come up first in Canada with a real Christkindl Market? Kitchener, of course!
German Christmas Markets have been around for a very long time. The Danube Swabian Club has had one for 32 years. But it remained mainly German, in house so to speak, with some visitors from other ranks.
We know that the Club Harmonie, Toronto, held big Christmas Markets in their own building as well as Casa Loma. According to the Globe and Mail the opening of the German Christmas Market was attended in 1960 by 5 thousand people.
But
all these Christmas events were initiated by private and entrepreneurial
interests, by groups with an especially strong Christmas spirit. To this day
all these events attract many people annually. What is different with the
Christkindl Market in Kitchener? It too was initiated - like the other
Kitchener firsts in German style events - by German-Canadians. Oktoberfest
was taken over by bigger and municipal interests after it had become a
success.
The tenacity of German-Canadians in Kitchener was not lost on the city counsel. It seems that everyone listens when this community makes a suggestion and comes with plans in hand on how to make it work. There are plenty of volunteers to pitch in with not just brilliant ideas, but actual skills and a good dose of perseverance. That is probably also the reason why Bill 28, which gave Ontario an official German Pioneers Day (the day after Thanksgiving), originated in Kitchener and was passed in time for the first official celebration in this year 2000.
It has always been the German Canadian Clubs and other groups, the German Canadian Business and Professional Association and in more recent years also the German Canadian Congress, who pushed and pulled through many of these special projects, giving people of German descent in this country their dignity back, which was taken from them due to historical events a long time ago and far away from this continent.
In any event, those days are over and it is only fitting that the ethnic group who introduced the Christmas tree to Canada is also making Christmas Markets official business.
Kitcheners Christkindl Market was probably another trendsetter because Toronto too has an official Christmas Market this year, sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism with ten thousand dollars. And even though the main media hailed it largely as a European style market, we all know that the promotion read "German Style Christmas Market". Those big guys just haven’t got the hang of it yet to refer to all things German in a true and charming way. Sure, German engineered and built cars are not only accepted but also expected. German beer is still a world leader, German wines have a nice market share, German pots and pans and knifes and scissors, German tableware including beautiful china, German precision technology, printing machines (the Toronto star is using one) and many other things like monetary and real estate transactions are a normal picture of the economic landscape. In the arts there are a few exchange projects enjoying interest and support. But in every day life German participation and input is not exactly the talk of the town. When the symphony plays Beethoven, it is just Beethoven. When a, let us say British composer is profiled on radio, we are sure to hear that he is an Englishman or such. When a German composer is profiled we hear all sorts of things but rarely that he is German. This little fact is almost always withheld or at least played down. No one mentions that several Canadian artistic institutions were in fact founded by people of German origin, not even in their recent anniversary brochures. Have you ever read or heard anywhere that Ontario Hydro was founded by the German born Adam Beck? We know the list of withheld facts is very long, but we are about to change all that.
Who remembers that Toronto and Frankfurt are so-called sister cities? This happened about 10 years ago and was celebrated with much fanfare at Toronto’s Nathan Phillip Square. Who remembers that Ontario and Baden-Wuerttemberg share common interests and give each other support? Was it a big story for the mainstream media that Canada had an especially huge pavilion at the Hanover Fair this year? Did the mainstream media pick up on the coalition of Cobourg, Germany, and Coburg, Ontario? Do these papers and TV stations report about our annual gala balls, like they do with nearly every other social event in this city? Methinks not! And why not?
Another important observation to make is that everything remotely connected to a German origin is not particularly loudly supported by even the big German national companies. One has to watch ones image, therefore one does not market a German concept but an international one. These campaigns are of course designed by the market researchers who have a degree in psychology, and we all know that they have misread us more often then not.
There are many still unanswered questions, but it is becoming more obvious every year, especially since the unification of Germany, that there are new answers to these questions, and they are coming in different concepts than before. There is a more general acceptance of all things German. Not everything originating in this particular community is suspect and examined for the possibility of treason anymore. It has taken a long time, but it is finally happening due to a lot of perseverance and good will. The suspicions of old are slowly but steadily melting away and are being replaced by more and more cooperation, acceptance and acknowledgment of the contributions the German-Canadian community has made in the past and is able to make now and in the future. This is sure proof that Canada is in fact living up to the hopes and dreams of its citizens, all its citizens.
Sybille Forster-Rentmeister
Comments to: sfr@echoworld.com
