Benelux Day 2: Migration

The problem with being human is that we only live our own lives. On Day Two of my Benelux Tour, we get a chance to improve on that.

Ensconced in our personal present tense it’s easy to forget that humans have been migrating since we climbed down out of the trees. It’s what we do. Migrate, flirt, think about what’s for dinner, and worry about things that will most likely never happen, those are our core activities. Unfortunately, distance from the first allows us to be vulnerable to the last, especially when the disingenuous push us that way. The act of migration is actively misunderstood in much of the world today, to the detriment of us all.

Rotterdam is the perfect place to improve that. Home of the Holland America Line that carried so many to foreign shores, the city is still called “The Gateway to Europe” but for at least a century was the gateway to the rest of the world. This history is made manifest in the new Migration Museum that quickly set records for visitor numbers after opening last May.

Crowned by the iconic “Tornado”  viewing platform, this classroom for humanity does a wonderful job reminding us about this quintessential experience, starting with a photo gallery that reminds anyone with a heart that migrants are people just like us, and continues across the hall in the suitcases.

The museum put out a call to families who still had their migrant family member’s luggage, and assembled them into a labyrinth. You walk between the walls of lives lived, and can scan QR codes to hear the story of that individual person. Upstairs is a whole second level. Want to stand in front of a piece of the Berlin Wall?

None of the exhibits pushes an interpretation or a policy, it just shows you the humanity on the boats, trains, and long arduous paths. Once everyone has gotten whatever they get from those rooms, the group’s path joins mine, as I host everybody for happy hour on my balcony.

This year the sun was setting in a long slow late summer glow, and we lifted a glass to the ordeals of history, the question marks of the future, and the simple joy of sitting among friends at the outset of a great trip together.

Cheers!