BallinStadt - Emigrant Museum Hamburg — Attraction in Hamburg

Great museum, especially if you're looking for a basic introduction to or a broad refresher of migration issues. If visitors have already learned a lot about migration this might be repetitious, but there's always something to learn, even so. It doesn't appear the items displayed (steamer trunks, personal papers, etc.) are original, rather they look like they're meant to represent items important to migrants, rather than carefully curated originals. It would be nice of that were explained somewhere (and maybe I just missed it), otherwise visitors might be led to believe the items are real, actual items that belonged to migrants. Overall, good museum experience, and probably great to pair with the other emigration museum in Bremerhaven (although we didn't have time to go there yet). One note of caution: There are only three computer terminals with Ancestry dot com access; one in House 1, and two in House 3 by the cafe and small gift shop. If you intend to dig deeply into your family history here, there aren't many terminals and there will likely be lots of people who also wish to use them, and they'll be waiting in line behind you...

Beautiful museum about migration. The core is about german and east European migration through Hamburg.

The museum is located in 3 halls that were part of the emigrant way station established by mr Ballin who is also featured in the exposition for his efforts to improve the conditions of emigrants.

In hall one the exhibit presents emigration via Hamburg and the achievements of mr Ballin.

The second hall treats migration in general with exhibits grouped by stages of a migrants journey. At each stage exhibits show migrants experiences and hopes. It is nice to see a past and present migrant experiences together.

In hall 3 there is another exposition that was closed for refurbishment at the time of my visit. Also in hall 3 is the museum shop and cafe. The cake was tasty and the staff is friendly.

The museum is mostly barrier free. Exceptions may be the cobblestone pavement between the 3 halls that - while rather smooth - may be difficult for some. In hall 2 there is an entry turnstile where im not sure how you can pass in a wheelchair.

Sadly the labels tend to be in german only but the exhibits are still visually...

Very disappointing: paid 13€ for a primary-school level exhibit. The museum has a very shallow exhibit about migration, focused mostly on the 19th-Century migration of Germans to the US. The exhibit is poorly organized, starting with a focus on the building themselves - former HAPAG passenger terminals - the progressing to a (myopically) optimistic portrait of immigration “across the ages” and finishing with a biographical exhibit of Ballin, the former HAPAG director general. What bothered me is that despite the centrality of migration to Germany and the EU political landscape, the museum chose rather to bet on platitudes such as “migration has been with humanity forever” and the dream of “making it big” in the New World of 19th Cent. migration. There is little depth even on the latter, and history aficionados will probably be left lacking data, documents and profiles from real people. This is the worst museum in Hamburg by a good margin. The city museum will be an awesome alternative once renovations are over. To sum up, don’t bother unless your kids wanna know where the US uncle lives...