Description
A rare, seemingly unrecorded guidebook of Buenos Aires was printed in Croatian language by a German transportation and shipping company and agency for immigrants Deutsche Schiffsagentur.
The book, which presents Buenos Aires as a place of great opportunities for earning money and progress, but also a place when lives and property are in danger, gives newly arrived immigrants instructions where to ask for information, how to send money and post back home, how to arrange paperwork and bank account (all these arrangements could be made through Deutsche Schiffsagentur), it gives basic information on the country, what to do in case of illness or death, lists addresses of Yugoslav consulates, and ends with a dictionary.
Argentina was one of the main destinations of immigration of Croatians and other Yugoslav nations, from the mid 19thcentury until the beginning of WWII. Around 1900 there were 133 settlements, with some 120,000 Croats in Argentina. The second wave of immigration followed immediately after WWII.
The guidebook is very rare. We could not trace any other examples on the market nor in institutions worldwide.
