The slogan at the entrance to the new museum of emigration says it all: "Over seven million people departed from here to an unknown world." Emigration House, which opened a few weeks ago, is intended to explain why immigrants left Europe. The spacious, modern building, framed in latticed wood, overlooks Bremerhaven's Old Port, created in 1837 in large part to take advantage of the wave of emigration to America that began around then from Germany.

"We want young people to know about people who took this step, to leave their homes for the unknown world," said Andreas Heller, the architect who designed the Bremerhaven museum, describing emigration as "a long journey, and maybe a journey with no coming back."