Red Star Line Museum

The company was founded by Clement Griscom, who led it from its founding until the International Mercantile Marine Co. took it over in 1902. Red Star Line survived IMM's financial crisis in 1915. In the 1930s Red Star Line was part of Arnold Bernstein Line.

The company declared bankruptcy in 1934. It operated until 1935 when it ceased trading. Its assets were eventually sold to the Holland America Line.

The former warehouses of the Red Star Line in Antwerp were designated as a landmark and reopened as a museum on 28 September 2013 by the City of Antwerp. The main focus of the museum is the travel stories that could be retrieved through relatives of the some two million Red Star Line passengers. In the exhibition the visitor follows the travelers' tracks from the travel agency in Warsaw until their arrival in New York. The museum exhibits works of art depicting the Red Star Line emigrants by the Antwerp artist Eugeen Van Mieghem (1875-1930), together with Red Star Line memorabilia from the collection of Robert Vervoort.

About a quarter of the some two million Red Star Line migrants were Jews, largely from Eastern Europe until the exodus driven by the rise of Nazi Germany. Among them were many famous persons, including regular passenger Albert Einstein. On learning of the Nazi confiscation of his possessions, Einstein chose not to return to Germany; his letter resigning from the Prussian Academy of Sciences, written on the line's stationery, is a part of the museum exhibit. Other notable emigrants included the five-year-old Irving Berlin.

The main exhibition further showcases 8 steps detailing passengers broader journeys, focusing on a travel agency in Warsaw, a train compartment, the interior of a ship, arrival at Ellis Island, and a new future in the United States. The museum hereby functions on multiple layers, presenting a local story of the city and its harbor, a Belgian component or a European story, detailing the journey of European emigrants to Antwerp, the national restrictions they dealt with, and their reasons for leaving (antisemitism, poverty, following in the footsteps of family and friends, leisure etc.), an American story, and finally also a universal story.

This larger universal context, and the connection between emigration and immigration then and now, is emphasized in the museum. The first room visitors enter details large immigration and emigration movements through the centuries, and a large globe construction filled with flat screens shows videos of different contemporary immigration questions in the news.

The museum hereby portrays immigration as something of all times, and presents the particular history of the Red Star Line within this context. At the end of the museum this theme is further highlighted with exhibitions dedicated to immigration in Antwerp today, personal stories of immigrants in society, a video-installation of artist Hans Op de Beeck aimed at reflecting on the connections between historical and contemporary immigration and emigration, and the archive project of the museum that collects personal stories of visitors, their connection to the Red Star Line, and their current experiences with immigration and emigration.

While detailing the specific history of diverse experiences of passengers of the Red Star Line, the musuem also functions as a larger migration themed museum that encourages visitors to critically reflect on their assumptions. The focus on personal experiences however does sometimes obscure the more corporate aspects of the history of the company, which could have added a valuable dimension, and realities such as return emigration sadly still remain largely unexplored. All in all however the museum offers a very immersive experience that allows visitors to reflect on both historical and contemporary migration and to explore the connections between the two.

Source: Wikipedia and EUROM.