From The Week in Germany, 4 May 2001: New Museum to Recall Hamburg's Role as Last Stop in Europe Millions of Americans with roots in Central and Eastern Europe will soon have a chance to retrace the steps their ancestors took as they bid farewell to the Old World and set sail for the New. Like a mirror image of New York's Ellis Island, the tiny island of Veddel in the Elbe River near Hamburg once served as a way station for masses of emigrants leaving Europe for America's shores. In the early twentieth century, Hamburg officials had families seeking passage across the Atlantic herded into barracks on Veddel in an effort to manage the crowds. Now the city is planning to restore the last vestiges of the Veddel compound to create Germany's first emigration museum. Between 1850 and 1934, more than 5 million Europeans passed through the port of Hamburg in hopes of starting a better life abroad. Since a large portion of them landed on Ellis Island, Hamburg Mayor Ortwin Runde and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York have agreed to form a cooperative link between the two museums. Among the records kept at Ellis Island are the names of all the passengers processed by the facility between 1892 to 1924. The Hamburg museum will link this list with its own records, which include each passenger's place of origin. Ellis Island has also agreed to host a special exhibition on Hamburg's role in emigration history. The Hamburg museum is scheduled to be completed in about three years. In the meantime, Internet users can access a portion of its records at: http://www.hamburg.de/LinkToYourRoots/english/welcome.htm