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Johan Leman, 5 March 2024

Am busy recording stories of people from Morocco who arrived in the 1960s, while Ms Nicole Montoisie, a former social worker, is doing the same for Turks who arrived in St Josse during the same period.

What strikes me so far is that six elements invariably pop up in the Moroccan stories:

– Those people felt very well received by ‘ the Belgians’ (though even then there were sometimes already people who tried to exploit them),

– They brought their wives and any children over after six months to a year, a period during which they stayed together with some friends in a small appartment,

– They did not live concentrated in neighbourhoods then,

– They had – in their words – Belgian, Italian and Spanish friends at work and also outside work,

– They experienced Islam very personally and intimately at home,

– For a long period, they didn’t speak with their children about their former migration.

Wondering if new stories will add other profiles to that now. One may expect it. The personal touch makes every story very interesting.

If you know people from that time, feel free to put them in touch with the museum MMM via Foyer for a half-hour interview. About those 60s. We will give those stories a place in the Museum of migration.

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