Our time at the FENIX was so poignant that it will take a few posts to describe. And by the way, gratitude to our friend Esther for telling us about the museum. The FENIX opened just one year ago. It was inaugurated by the queen of the Netherlands, Queen Máxima.
FENIX is an art museum with a single theme: migration. Hundreds of migration stories as told by international artists and documentarians. Some journeys are horrific, some are sad as people flee natural disasters, war and violence. Some stories are joyful as migrants chose the path to new beginnings. Fittingly, the FENIX overlooks the docks where millions have departed or arrived for their next journey. It resides in a huge renovated warehouse. A modern touch is the Tornado, a spiraling staircase leading to the rooftop…yes, it looks like a silver tornado.
There are four large spaces, two on the ground floor and two on the first floor (what we Americans would call the second floor). Just pick a space to start. It doesn’t matter where.
We dropped our wet rain jackets in a locker (we had a brief rain squall to walk through on the way over) and began with the Suitcase Labrynthe. A maze of stacked suitcases awaited. We each grabbed an audio guide and as we walked the maze, we looked for yellow labels. The guide was activated by pointing it at the label for an instant, then we could listen to the story of the suitcase.
There was the Chinese woman, pregnant when her husband left for America. It took 30 years for her to find a way to get to him. It was too dangerous for her to travel pregnant or with a child. Eventually she and her son escaped to Hong Kong, he married and started a family. Once it was safe to travel, she and her son and grandchildren were able to make their way to the U.S. That’s where the story of the suitcase ended but I sure wanted to know what happened when she arrived.
After listening to 10 or 15 suitcase stories, it was time for a breakfast break. Be back later with more from the FENIX.
I’d have really loved that museum. My mother emigrated to America in 1920 after World War I in steerage class. Before that her family fled their small town that was part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire (now in western Ukraine) to Vienna at the start of the war — the Russians were coming; they didn’t much like Jews, not that the Austrians were that fond of them. I never could get her to talk of her experiences.
My Dad was a company clerk (like Radar on MASH) and family rumor was that his company had been one of the first into one of the concentration camps but he would never talk about it either so I don’t know any details or if it was even true.
I remember about that. And thinking how horrific it would have been to bear witness.