Re-enactment of refugees waiting for ships departure at Hamburg's BallinStadt museum.

On an island outside the German city of Hamburg, a brand new museum is dedicated to the massive migration of Europeans to North America.

It gives visitors a you-are-there experience of the refugees who poured from the European shores for almost a century with their suitcases and dreams.

It is reached from the city's main railway station by subway in five or 10 minutes, or by boat in about 30.

Many North Americans' German ancestors boarded ships in Hamburg, along with Russians, Poles and other Eastern European refugees who trekked to this German port between 1850 and 1939.

The museum is called BallinStadt, after businessman Albert Ballin.

He was a director of Hamburg-America Line, HAPAG, and was instrumental in arranging passage for emigrants to America as well as profitable return trips by loading these same ships with cargo for delivery to European ports. A report billed as the 1900 Immigration Report For Canada, found on-line at theshipslist.com, indicates that passage from Hamburg to Winnipeg via Halifax ("in spring only") cost $45.50.

Ballin is also credited with inventing the cruise ship. Despite his accomplishments, he was not accepted into Hamburg society because of his Jewish background.

Although he was friends with Kaiser Wilhelm II, World War I caused his economic ruin, through the loss of most of his ships. Just two days before the 1918 armistice, he took an overdose of sleeping pills.

The new museum honouring him bears the subtitle "Port of Dreams" and is a re-creation of the facilities that existed during the period that five-million refugees were driven to leave the Continent because of persecution, economic reasons or a shady past.

Many followed families already established in America.

They spent their last hours before sailing at this port, or at Bremerhaven, another point of departure an hour's train ride away. An museum was opened there in 2005.

At the turn of the 20th century, Ballin built "emigrant halls" at Hamburg for thousands of passengers who waited for ships to take them to the Americas. He catered to Jewish travellers by providing kosher meals and a synagogue, and placed ethnic groups in separate dormitories to prevent discord.

Three of these buildings have been reconstructed and, for admission of about 10 euros, visitors can relive the emigrant experience going back in time step by step.

Visitors immerse themselves in custom-built backdrops, interactive videos and authentic tableaux. Mannequins sitting or standing with suitcases may utter recorded tidbits about their lives that are historically documented.

There are the cots on which they slept, tables at which they ate and on view are their letters, photos from family albums, clothes, and the sitting areas where they waited to begin their journey across the Atlantic.

Also prominently displayed are the biographies of the ancestors of some of our famous American captains of industry, such household names as Heinz, Levi-Strauss, and Kellogg.

Representations of new arrivals' lives in America are here as well in three-dimensional farm and city scenes depicting their new homes.

An interactive section enables visitors to research the history of emigrants in "the world's most comprehensive genealogical database" with more than 600 million entries. This is where 21st century technology resuscitates the past, finding the name of an ancestor delivering a printout of historical documents with the click of a mouse.

Hamburg, with its ubiquitous water views -- its three rivers are the Elbe, Alster, and Bille -- makes a congenial headquarters for a visit to the museum. It has more canals than Venice, more bridges than Amsterdam and Venice combined, and is the richest city in Germany.

Various boat trips allow passengers a peek at millionaires' homes, visible along Alster Lake. Green parks and woods cover half the city.

"The magic is in the mix," brags promotional literature. Modern shops and cafes are within sight of the imposing neo-Renaissance Town Hall, dominating the skyline with its spire, decreed not to exceed treetop height.

Other lures include the three-building Kunsthalle (Art Hall) with its Renoirs, Rembrandts, and Richters; the Kunst und Gewerbe (craft and design) museum, and the world's largest model-train museum, which includes a recreated miniature Las Vegas, Mount Rushmore, and Manhattan for the miniature trains to trundle through.

Several smaller museums and the glossy stores along Jungfern Stieg or Neuer Wall are also alluring.

For bargains, there are hip artists' districts like Karolienenviertel and the city's abundant flea markets.

One should never mention Hamburg without referring to the infamous red-light district, the Reeperbahn. There's late-night music-club action, some of it the seedy neon-and-hot-sheets-hotel type, with procurers and pole dancers visible through dimly-lit doorways.

It's quite safe these days and its place in history is fixed because it was the site of the Beatles' headliner concerts at the Star Club in 1962. The place burned down a decade later but a plaque marks the site, a good place to take another snapshot .

For more information, visit the cometogermany.com or call 800-651-7010.