WHO CARED
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| free admission |
| German |
| Mechanical Arena in the Foyer |
| Part of: SPÄTI |
| Belongs to: Family Matters |
Shortage of care workers and care migration are not new phenomena. As early as the 1960s and 70s, people from abroad were systematically recruited to the Federal Republic of Germany to fill staffing gaps in the care sector. Most of them came from South Korea, the Philippines and India. Their experiences have shaped German history — yet they often remain invisible.
WHO CARED makes these stories visible. In video portraits, the online archive preserves the life stories of the women who left their homes more than 60 years ago to work in care. What makes the project special: they are interviewed by their children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews.
With a focus on care migration from the South Indian state of Kerala, Urmila Goel and Viola Mattathil-Reuther discuss how this migration history can be researched — and what we can learn from it for the present, as Germany once again increasingly recruits people from India and other countries to work in care. At the age of 16, Thressiamma Arackal herself came to the Federal Republic from Kerala in the 1975, worked as a nurse in Hamm (Westphalia) for 40 years and started a family. In a conversation with her son Abhilash, she talks about her experiences. The two provide insights into the archiving and remembrance work of WHO CARED. The talks will be accompanied by music by Manoj Kurian and the bar will be open.
What kinds of boundaries does migration draw between the lived experiences of two generations? What longings shape these lives? How do former nurses look back on care work, migration and their own histories?
Thressiamma Arackal’s story and two additional films from the project can be viewed in the exhibition of the annual programme Family Matters at the Humboldt Forum until July 2026.
Participants
Abhilash Arackal is a cultural and music manager from Cologne. He appears as an organizer, promoter, cultural actor, and musician, moving between pop and transcultural contexts. The migration history of Indian nurses is also part of his family story, which is why he advocates for greater representation of Indian and South Asian perspectives. This includes the project WHO CARED: making this part of German history visible and contributing to a culture of remembrance is a matter close to his heart.
Thressiamma Arackal came to Germany from Vaddekkencherry in Kerala (southern India) in 1975 to train as a nurse. She left her parents’ home at the age of 16 and worked for a total of 40 years at the St. Barbara Clinic in Hamm (Westphalia). During this time, she started a family and gave birth to three children. Today, she is no longer working, but she still has ties to the hospital: as a volunteer pastoral carer, she continues to visit the place where she began her training 50 years ago on a regular basis. It is important to her to document her career for both her descendants and for society in Germany. That is why she and her son Abhilash have recorded her story for the online archive WHO CARED.
As part of the exhibition within the programme year Family Matters, she presents her story at the Humboldt Forum until July 2026.
Urmila is a cultural anthropologist and acting professor at Humboldt University in Berlin. Since the late 1990s, she has been researching migration from India to Germany and has published extensively on the subject. Her initial research interest stemmed from growing up as the daughter of a migrant from Haryana and her involvement in Indo-German youth work. The more she engaged with the stories of nurses from Kerala—always part of her life—the more fascinated she became by this migration history. She began to study it academically, collect material, and develop the idea of an oral history archive. In WHO CARED, Urmila keeps the broader context in view, maintains the connection to academia, and supports participants in conducting interviews.
Viola is an administrative lawyer with a strong sense of justice and curiosity about German migration society. She earned her doctorate in criminal law and is committed to ensuring that everyone has a fair chance. Viola comes from a family of many strong women who have always thought of career and motherhood together. In WHO CARED, she takes care of all legal matters, such as copyright, data protection, and more.
Manoj Kurian Kallupurackal is a freelance brand consultant, designer, and social entrepreneur. His expertise ranges from media design to the development of communication concepts and the building of brands and communities. After many years of working in India, Malaysia, Egypt, and Switzerland, he now lives and works again in his hometown of Cologne. As founder of the non-profit platform Masala Movement and curator of various cultural projects and event formats, he aims to create spaces for post-migrant perspectives where diversity and identity are celebrated—with respect for the past and fresh perspectives for the future. His transcultural identity also flows through his music: as a DJ, he selects and combines sounds in unconventional ways, from folklore and fusion to global electronic beats. At WHO CARED, Manoj is responsible for creative direction. As the son of a nurse with a migration background, he wants to make the experiences of women like his mother visible—with the wish that their life paths and contributions be recognized as an important and natural part of German history.
For the project, Manoj interviewed his mother about her life story. The interview film can be seen until July as part of the programme year Family Matters at the Humboldt Forum.
Julia is a journalist and author by profession. Her father is from India, and her mother came to Germany as a late repatriate at the age of ten. For a long time, she did not realize that she had a “migration background”—after all, she was born and raised in Germany. Only as a journalist in India did she begin to grapple with it. Her first book, Sag mir nicht, wer ich bin (“Don’t Tell Me Who I Am,” 2022, dtv), tells of this journey and of identity-political debates between two countries that seem more different at first glance than they really are. The process showed her how healing and exciting it can be to talk with one’s own parents about their history—and how important this understanding is for societal debates. That is just one reason why WHO CARED is close to her heart. In the team, Julia keeps an overview and takes care of everything related to text.
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