New emigration museums explore U.S.-German relations

The Ellis Island National Monument in New York, with its moving tribute to the more than 12 million European immigrants who flooded into the U.S. through the city in the 19th and early 20th centuries, only tells half the story. Each of those new arrivals left family, friends and country behind in the Old World, and it is with an eye to telling their stories that two new emigration museums are making a splash in the lesser-known region of northern Germany.

The newest project, the BallinStadt -- Port of Dreams museum in Hamburg, will document emigration to the U.S., highlighting the city's role as a principal emigration port for Eastern Europeans, particularly Russian and Polish Jews, from 1850 to 1939.

Set to open in Hamburg's Veddel Island next summer, the museum was designed in part to attract the 20 million or so Americans of all backgrounds who can directly trace their heritage to the 5.2 million emigrants who passed through the center, according to museum director Jens-Horst Nitschke.

BallinStadt once offered emigrants a safe place to live while waiting to set sail; they received housing, food and medical care courtesy of the Hamburg America Line Shipping Co. As many as 5,000 people, more than 80% of them Jewish, stayed at the center at any one time.

Described as the most complete collection of emigration materials in the world, the manifests, unlike ship passenger lists from other European ports, survived World War II hidden in Hamburg's town hall. At war's end, the town hall was among the few buildings still standing in the city.

Visitors can use the information from the manifests, digitalized to be more user-friendly, to research family history. The research center will reside in one of three restored harbor buildings, along with a visitor center, shops and hospitality services.

A second building will house a large exhibition tracing the lives of the emigrants in Europe and their journey to the U.S., while a third will approximate the interior of the original emigration center, complete with original walls and cobblestone walkways. There, visitors will be able to explore the dormitories, hospital, synagogue and chapel and even eat in the dining hall.

The center will be part of a larger harbor expansion to include an aquarium, philharmonic hall and additional museums.

The project is expected to draw more tourists to Hamburg, which, Nitschke admitted, is often bypassed by tourists in favor of Bavaria and other southern regions.

Hamburg donated some $3.75 million as well as land for the museum project.

"Our goal is to show visitors that the immigration story has not ended," Nitschke said. "We want to honor the efforts of the people of the last century who helped build up America."

Heritage harbor

The Hamburg project follows closely on the heels of the German Emigration Center in Bremerhaven, which opened to much fanfare in August 2005 and drew some 235,000 visitors in its first year.

The museum, which cost more than $25 million, transports visitors back through more than a century of emigration and provides them with an opportunity to research their ancestors via records, photos, documents and more than 2,000 biographies of emigrants who passed through the seaport.

The museum is the jewel in the crown of a harbor renaissance project set for completion in 2008, according to Susan Rienitz, the museum's director of U.S. marketing.

The project will cost $575 million and is expected to draw 1 million visitors a year.

"In the past it's taken some doing to persuade clients to consider exploring northern Germany," said Julie Blackman, travel counselor and Germany specialist at Focus on Travel in Beaverton, Ore. "The German Emigration Center ... is helping to change this."

While many of her clients who are planning visits to the center are searching their family histories, Blackman noted that interest in genealogy is not confined to those of ethnic German heritage, "due to the large numbers of emigres from other European states who transited Bremerhaven."

Camelot in Berlin

One famous American who declared kinship with Germany despite not being a descendant was former President John F. Kennedy. To celebrate that link, yet another museum will open in northern Germany.

The museum, called simply the Kennedys, is set to debut this November in Berlin. It pays homage to the Kennedy dynasty, culminating in JFK's political career and his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.

The museum, near the Brandenburg Gate, will house more than 1,000 photographs as well as documents, books and films.

Regional tourism offices as well as officials from the German National Tourist Office are optimistic the new museums will benefit all three cities, said Michaela Klare, regional manager of the Americas at the GNTO.

"We are thrilled to have such a concrete product to offer to agents who work with the 46 million Americans of German descent," she said. "These museums offer a new opportunity ... to sell Germany in a new way."

To further bolster that effort, Hamburg tourism officials are working with the GNTO to integrate the center into packages that operators and agents can sell in the U.S. and in Europe, according to Nitschke.

Similarly, the Bremerhaven Tourist Board is already including the German Emigration Center in its tour packages, which are accessible on the GNTO Web site, said Rienitz.

Packages will also play a pivotal role in Germany's focus on heritage travel in general, said Klare. "We are planning in the U.S. a heritage campaign and jubilee for this year," she said. Agents interested in heritage travel to Germany can order the Routes to the Roots brochure from the GNTO.

To contact reporter Felicity Long, send e-mail to [email protected].