The Paul and Dora Janssen-Arts collection is a world-famous collection of artefacts from the Americas before Columbus. It illustrates like no other the extraordinary link between life and death in pre-Columbian cultures.
Abram Spiwak decided to follow his beloved Sophie to America. He did not have valid papers, but he tried his luck with the financial support of his family.
In 1890, the painter Louis van Engelen depicted a crowd of Belgian emigrants moving across Antwerp’s Nassau Bridge to the district of Het Eilandje towards a ship. The resident population watches them pass by.
Photographs show the people involved and the circumstances surrounding their emigration. Consequently, photography is an important source of information for the story of the Red Star Line.
Antwerp was a particularly popular port of emigration among Jews from Central and Eastern Europe. These people constituted a sizeable proportion of the Red Star Line’s passengers. The shipping company recruited its “customers” from deep within Eastern Europe.
