Mom said they packed up and left by night, secretly loading their stuff and kids into rowboats on the river. I always assumed "the river" was the Rhine, like we'd mean the Mississippi, but looking at the map of that area, there's a tributary to the Rhine right from Dielheim. Wow--was that river really deep and wide enough to float get-away boats?
Anyway, the Rhine seems to meander all over, but eventually leads to the ports in Rotterdam and Antwerp in a whole different country, Holland. Mom said they were "safe from pursuit" there, and could leave on the next ship out. That ship turned out to be the Zeeland, a Red Star Line ship (last post, right!)
So this week, Larry found a pdf containing places in Belgium, the US, and Holland where you can write to find info about ancestors who left on Red Star ships. However, what really interested us were the photos sprinkled thru the brochure:  |
| The Red Star Line building, evidently at the port in Antwerp. |
 |
| Waiting to go. Judging by the women's clothing, this was a good 40 years after the Jansons left, but possibly from the same building? |
 |
| "Everything for passengers is done free of charge in this building" says the sign (in 5 languages). These were luggage disinfecting machines... but I think they were not even thought of when our folks left. These pics seem to be from well after 1900. |
 |
| The most interesting photo, I think, is this pic showing passengers filing on board. The words under the pic are the only explanation given, but the walkway in the foreground vs. the line of people farther down the quay speaks volumes. And, damn, that's one SMALL ship.  |
No comments:
Post a Comment