"Antwerp = America"

Eugeen Van Mieghem and the Emigrants of the Red Star Line The exhibition evokes the atmosphere of Antwerp between 1870 and 1935, a period of great economic expansion during which the city became one of the most important European ports of embarkation for immigrants traveling to America. The focus in this history of Antwerp and its port is on the Red Star Line, the Belgian shipping company that carried millions of immigrants to America during this period. The drawings and paintings of Antwerp artist Eugeen Van Mieghem are interwoven into the exhibition. Van Mieghem lived and worked near the city's quays, and some of his favorite subjects were the thousands of immigrants who were about to embark on the greatest adventure of their lives. He saw them leave for the New World from his doorstep. Simultaneously with the exhibition in the South Street Seaport Museum a special presentation of Red Star Line will be set up in the entrance hall of the "˜Ellis Island Immigration Museum'. In addition to the exhibition the musical "˜Portrait of a stolen spring' will be presented in the fall. It is a unique musical drama which tells the true story of the Ukrainian Jews Chaja Zimmerman and Moses Kalter, who left their homeland at the beginning of the 20th century hoping to reach America via the port of Antwerp with the Red Star Line.