I cannot find any mention of this museum and/or the port city of Bremer or Bremerhaven in the travel books I have. A major goal of my trip to Austria & Germany this spring is to do genealogy. My ancesters boarded a ship in Bremen in 1884 to immigrate to the US and I'm wondering if I should include this area in my trip?
Posted by
Lawrenceville, Georgia
693 posts
Monica, the following website has an English version and is comprehensive enough so that you could base your decision of visiting or not visiting Bremerhaven and the museum on how interesting you find it. The city of Bremen lies inland (about 40 miles south of the port of Bremerhaven). http://www.dah-bremerhaven.de/ If you know where your ancestors came from, you could concentrate on the area of their origin and only include Bremerhaven if they actually lived in Northwestern Germany. Most German cities have an English version of their websites, so you can research them even if they're not listed in your travel books. They will definitely be listed in German travel books written for Germans, so if you speak the language you could order one from Amazon (there is a German amazon.) My personal favorite is the Baedeker. By the way, I think the Auswanderer Haus Museum sounds fascinating but Bremerhaven is pretty far off the beaten tourist path. However, for decades, American military picked up their cars they shipped over to Germany in Bremerhaven and often also shipped them home from there when their tour of duty was up.
Posted by
San Diego
20 posts
In 2008, on our way to Berlin, we flew into Dusseldorf, then took the train to Bremerhaven to visit this museum. We really enjoyed our time there as they have excellent exhibits. We did not sleep in Bremerhaven. Late in the day, after our visit to the museum, we continued to Hannover for the night. We felt this day was great for our jet lag.