Hamburg re-creates emigrant world in new port exhibit

By Erik Kirschbaum

HAMBURG (Reuters) - Five million emigrants bound for America took their final glimpses of the "old world" in Hamburg and the northern port city has belatedly turned its attention to their long-forgotten plight with a powerful new exhibition.

Germany's second city has made up for decades of neglecting its past as one of Europe's most important gateways to the "new world" with an exhibition and genealogy research centre opened by city leaders on Thursday after a decade of planning.

Three of the original 30 cavernous red-brick "emigrants halls", where millions were housed while waiting for ships, clearing medical tests and collecting travel documents, have been rebuilt on Veddel island, now a low-rent quarter.

The 16-acre exhibition also includes a documentation centre with access to the world's largest data base of passenger lists -- a treasure trove with 3.5 million names registered and the remaining 2 million names to be added in the months ahead.

Researchers at computer workstations can help visitors search a network of genealogical databases to track details recorded on passengers -- travel dates, professions, town of origin, dates of birth, and members in their party.

Even though millions of migrants sailed to the United States from ports around Europe who fuelled the powerful economic growth in the United States around the turn of the last century, no other city saw off more people to the United States between 1850 and 1914 than Hamburg, according to local officials.

More than seven million Germans went to the United States from Germany -- through Hamburg as well as the second port in Bremerhaven. Some 58 million Americans trace their roots to Germany, including 30 million whose ancestors went via Hamburg.

"This is more than just another museum," said Hamburg mayor Ole von Beust in opening the 12 million euro ($15 million) exhibition, which is a cornerstone of the city's efforts to revitalize its port district.

"It's not just a recreation of the buildings but an attempt to re-create the emotions and feel of the world that existed when emigrants left to pursue their dreams of a better life in the new world. Hamburg was their final stop in the old world."

FROM HAMBURG TO ELLIS ISLAND

The city's history as one of the opposite poles of Ellis Island in New York has long been overlooked in Hamburg, where many of Europe's "tired, hungry and poor" got shabby treatment.

Hamburg prides itself on its port, one of Europe's busiest. But before it became one of the world's 10 biggest cargo ports, Hamburg was a launching point for millions of departing Europeans, especially from Eastern Europe.

The traditions of the era comes alive at the exhibition.

Mayor von Beust said a possible explanation behind the term "hamburger", for instance, can be traced to emigrants and the Hapag shipping company that carried them across the Atlantic.

"The 'hamburger' was believed to be first created right here," von Beust said. "I think it is one of the more creditable theories. Because passengers needed something to eat, they took this 'fleischbratprodukt' (cooked meat product), packed it between slices of bread, and called it a 'hamburger'."