Andrea
Testoni photojournalism
Pomerode
is a small city located in the Brazilian southern state of Santa Catarina. In
1861 Germans from Pommerland, a place in North Germany near the Baltic Sea,
moved to south Brazil and settled where Pomerode is but the city was only officially
founded in 1959. It is considered the most Germanic city in Brazil; almost 95%
of its 25.000-strong population speaks German, and some of them speak Plattdeutsch,
a dialect hardly used in the motherland. Nowadays you will still find some people
that do not speak Portuguese at all, even though they were born in Brazil.
Pomerode
- A hidden Germany inside Brazil
Pomerode is a very picturesque place with its Germanic traditions. There are
16 hunt clubs (not at all a sport shared by the rest of the country). The Enxaimel
architectural style derived directly from the German Fachwerk and during the
weekends and festivities you can see local bands playing traditional centenary
tunes.
They celebrate their Germanic inheritance regardless the fact that most of them
only know their ancestors’ native land from their unforgotten tales.
