Although today we associate Germany with wealth and industrial power, the country has traditionally been a poor country. The division into many territories, some of them with medieval organizations for the eighteenth century, caused the massive emigration of its population in search of a future in freedom, something that they could not enjoy in their places of origin.
The port of Bremen, today's town of Bremerhaven, has traditionally been the port of departure for Germans seeking a better life. It is estimated that between 1830 and 1974 around 7 million Germans emigrated mainly to America.
The emigration offices in the port of Bremenshaven would be the last place on German soil they would step on before boarding the ship towards an uncertain future. From the coming to power of the Nazi party, the forced emigration of political opponents and Jews was also carried out through that port.
Nazi Germany, being a country with a totalitarian regime, could not allow people not related to its ideology or people considered racially inferior to live in its territory. Jews were allowed to emigrate until 1941, but under strict conditions. Jews who wished to escape Nazi Germany legally had to sell their belongings and present proof of sale to the authorities, in addition to paying the costly boat ticket and emigration tax imposed by the regime.
This open door allowed most German Jews to escape the holocaust. It is estimated that of the around 6 million Jews exterminated by Nazi Germany, only 160,000 were German. Around 600,000 Jews lived in Germany in 1933, so the percentage is also better than the European average, which is around 50%.
Since 2005 the former departure point for German emigrants in Bremerhaven has been converted into a memorial and information center where the history of German emigrants from all eras is told, including the emigrants from the period of Nazi Germany. . To find out the opening hours of the place, you can consult the official website of the Bremerhaven emigration house.
How to get to the emigration house in Bremerhaven
The exhibition on the history of German emigration is located in the immigration center of Bremerhaven, in the center of the German coastal town.