A Music Box
The Step into Self-Employment

• Text zum Nachlesen

  The Music Box about Itself

  I am a music box. I was manufactured in China, but at some point, I was packed into a crate along with many others of my kind and exported. It‘s been almost 50 years since then. After a long journey, we landed in Geisweid, Germany, so we were imported again – and I thought: As long as you‘re not just exported but also imported again, everything is fine.

  The man who imported us was named Ihsan, he was from Turkey, and together with his wife Sevim, they ran a grocery store. When we heard that, someone said that the people in Geisweid might eat music boxes... But no, Ihsan wanted to expand his store with items like us, especially for customers who wanted to take us to Turkey. That made me laugh at the thought of people constantly transporting us halfway around the world – and I feared it might never stop. But it turned out we were meant as gifts – and that was something very special: To be a gift usually pleases an object a lot. And so, it all ended very well for us – including me:

  Although I didn‘t become a gift, I became an exhibit: Not only here in the museum but also elsewhere, in a display case in Ihsan‘s store, which has grown incredibly in the meantime and, by the way, is called „ELIH Import Export“. When I think back to how they put me in some crate in China... I never would have thought that I would one day be exhibited to recall the beginnings of a large company.

  Zusatzinfos

  Ihsan Elmaağaçlı arrived in Siegen in 1963 as one of the first Turkish „guest workers“. He worked as a welder, initially at Schallex and later at the Stahlwerke Südwestfalen, while also running a small-scale travel business on the side. In 1974, he and his wife Sevim established a grocery store in Geisweid, which thrived, prompting him to resign from the steelworks. Recognizing an untapped niche market, he ventured into household goods and gift items (like this music box), catering specifically to fellow nationals who also migrated to Germany under the recruitment agreements and particularly for those who regularly visited their families in Turkey. Subsequently, export business and online trading were added, expanding the customer base. Today, his youngest son, Ertan, manages the company. The main focus remains on high-quality household products such as glassware, porcelain, and dinnerware.

  The Company Sign to the Music Box

  I am a company sign – or was I a company sign? At any rate, I used to serve as a company sign, back in the late 19th century, a time when there were no cars and people walked much more frequently – and wore hats much more often than they do today.

  For me, this was quite good because it was my job to show people where the hat shop was. So, I always had something to do – and I also had responsibility. Next to my hat shop, there were five others in Siegen. Hats were sold as far as the eye could see.

  This went on for quite a while, until the 1960s. But when you entered Ihsan‘s product range in the 1970s, the heyday of hats had just passed – so I finally had nothing left to do.

  How different the situations are in which people start their own businesses, right? I mean, on the one hand, you experienced many things just like me, such as the excitement when customers come and look and maybe even buy – and on the other hand, many things were different for you, also because your Ihsan was an immigrant. The opportunities for migrants were often limited in both directions, whether as employees or as self-employed people.

  Have you ever considered starting your own business? Or have you already done so?