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In May 2025, a new art museum opened in the port of Rotterdam, focusing on the theme of migration and showcasing how people are on the move worldwide, both historically and today.

The museum covers approximately 15,000 square meters, features a permanent exhibition, and has a space for temporary exhibitions on the ground floor. The museum’s founding initiative stemmed from the desire to tell stories about migration. For decades, from 1891 onward, immigrants departed from Wilhelminakade along the river, across from the Rijnhaven (Rijnhaven), to destinations including America. They crossed the Atlantic Ocean aboard the Holland-America Line.[5] Their primary destination was Ellis Island in New York, which served as the gateway to the New World for immigrants.

A few weeks ago, my mother mentioned her eagerness to visit this museum, also referring to her own migration background, having left her homeland Indonesia as a young girl in the 1960s. Her family was among the last to arrive in the Netherlands because life in the Republic was fraught with obstacles such as daily discrimination and human trafficking.
I’m currently working on finding peace with my heritage. I don’t feel purely Dutch or purely Indonesian, but rather a blend that enriches my life. Instead of continuing to feel the pain of not being considered Dutch enough by a native Dutch person, I want to continue to embrace my difference through batik art and culture.

My mother is 72, and even though the nearest parking garage is a six-minute walk away, it’s far too far for her. That’s why I chose to rent a wheelchair to make the visit possible for her. There were times when she wanted to push the wheelchair herself, and we found the day educational, inspiring, and emotional.

Below information is from the website of Fenix.
Fenix ​​is ​​housed in a historic harbor warehouse dating from 1923. Once the largest transshipment warehouse in the world, it was designed by architect Cornelis van Goor and built for the Holland America Line. At that time, the warehouse was still called Warehouse San Francisco and is 360 meters long. In recent years, the warehouse has been restored and transformed into a museum. At the heart of the building, architect Ma Yansong added the Tornado: a double, spiraling staircase that spirals upwards to a viewing platform above the roof.

A turbulent history
During World War II, German troops blew up the quays. The warehouse was severely damaged. In 1948, a fire destroyed part of the building. Like the mythical phoenix, the warehouse rose from the ashes. The building was rebuilt, but as two separate structures. These were aptly named Fenix ​​Warehouse I and Fenix ​​Warehouse II.

A place of comings and goings
From the Fenixloods, you look out over the quays where millions of people once departed by ship. Just as many people arrived in the Katendrecht district and in Rotterdam, seeking a new home. This history inspired Ma Yansong of MAD Architects. He was the first Chinese architect to design a museum in Europe.
He designed a futuristic addition to the more than century-old warehouse: the Tornado. A work of art and observation deck in one. Two staircases, with a route of their own choosing, lead visitors to a panoramic deck above the roof. The Tornado’s rounded shapes make it appear as if in motion. The design thus reflects the bustle and history of the quays, where the lives of millions of men, women, and children changed forever.

Restored for the future
Over the years, the warehouse has served a variety of purposes and has been renovated several times. Various styles and elements that complemented each other or the building were added. Based on the advice of Bureau Polderman, the historic harbor warehouse was carefully restored. The facades and window frames were restored to their green color. The tranquil rhythm of the original design, with its concrete columns and characteristic windows, was reinstated.

Stories of the people who helped build it
Hundreds of engineers, welders, and carpenters are working together on the restoration and construction of Fenix. Behind every bolt, screw, and plank is a person with a story. For example, meet Asgeir, who came from Norway to the Netherlands for love. Or discover the story of friends Alan and Remsley. While Remsley longs for his life as a fisherman on Curaçao, Alan has found his new home in Rotterdam.

All artworks tell their own story. Whether it’s an artwork made of plastic bags (degeneratingly called a “Turkish suitcase”) or a giant embroidered tapestry depicting the artist’s family history, these works reflect a personal connection or experience with the topic of migration.

People migrate for various reasons: a better future, war, or natural disasters. It’s not a contemporary movement. Unfortunately, migration also encounters considerable resistance and misunderstanding. No one will simply leave their homeland, and in the current negative political climate surrounding migration, it’s wise to show understanding for the migrant’s situation.

I was very intrigued by the tapestry above, made by Thania Petersen (South Africa 1980).

With this tapestry, Thania Petersen tells her family history, which begins in Indonesia. At the top, she embroidered nutmeg, a precious Indonesian spice that played an important role in trade. The medieval monsters depict European sailors. 150 years ago, they shipped Petersen’s ancestors from their homeland to Cape Town, recognizable by Table Mountain.

I previously wrote that while the enslaved people of Suriname are more widely known in Dutch history, the enslaved people of Southeast Asia receive almost no attention when discussing the horrors of colonization. And that saddens me. This piece gives me hope that their stories will also become more widely known.

These figures are carved from wooden Railroad ties and represent groups of people who have been denied entry to the United States throughout history. They include Africans, Jews, Japanese Americans, and Muslims. The figure in the front, still unknown, symbolizes the next group barred from entering the Land of the Free.

This art installation gave me an ominous feeling. Many of these groups have had serious consequences. The first figure is an African woman with a child, symbolizing those who were not transported to America as free men. Then came the Jews who wanted to flee Nazism in Europe. Antisemitism wasn’t limited to Europe; Hitler had many admirers in America.
During World War II, America targeted a new enemy: the Japanese Americans. They were imprisoned in camps, and their property was destroyed or stolen.
9/11 brought the next enemy into the Americans’ sights: Muslims. Every Muslim had to answer for the actions of a small group of extremists.
The final figure is still unknown, the next group to face America’s wrath. For me, it’s the Latins. Every day, groups of people are dragged from their cars or homes and locked up in detention centers as if they had committed a crime. Their only crime is being Latin and wanting a better future for their children. Whiteness isn’t the foundation of America; First Nations people were already there. But with their nationalistic preaching, they want to make white people the ultimate deity, at all costs.

On the ground floor, a suitcase maze has been built using suitcases donated by migrants. An audio tour guides you through migration stories about love and farewell, about coming home and feeling at home, about homesickness and longing.

This part of the museum became the most emotional part for my mother. She recognised the suitcase she had when packing up a select few items to take with her to the Netherlands. The smell of leather brought her back to her old room in Makassar and brought her to tears.

I still remember the story of how she had a table clock in her house, and when it became known they were emigrating, her neighbor bought it. From that moment on, she heard the clock’s mechanism ticking on the other side of the wall, and she realized she would leave everything in the house behind. A thought that made her very sad as a child.

When my mother dies, she won’t die on the land where she was born. And that brings her a great sense of loss.

I bought two books in the museum shop. “Suitcase Stories,” which tells the stories of 10 migrants. For me, it’s important to read the stories of other migrants as well. Because every journey is special.

“The Blue Book” is a reflection on colonization. “The Colony Strikes Back” – On White Arrogance and Progressive Insight: A reflection and reading journey.

The wounds inflicted by forced displacement, Western expansionism, and divide-and-rule politics have not yet healed. Europe is under scrutiny, the worldview dictated by white power is shifting, and the descendants of the colonized are raising their voices. Adriaan van Dis—born in an Indonesian background—has been following the postcolonial debate at home and abroad for years. A reading and thinking experience that ultimately prompted him to look at this era differently.

I think it’s good that people are coming to different insights, because the Dutch East India Company era brought the Netherlands great wealth, but at the expense of people overseas.

I highly recommend this museum. It’s best to go on a dry day, as the Tornado is easy to climb. Visit the café and try delicious international dishes like hummus and kofte. And be sure to check the calendar; they offer workshops and you can dine with the neighbors.

Not a lot of things make me fearful until a demonstration against migration happened in September. It’s been a month now and I still feel uncomfortable around certain opinions.
During that demonstration some guys thought it was fitting to fly the Dutch East India Company (VOC) flag. For me that flag is synonymous with genoicide commited to the people of my motherland, which is Indonesia.

This flag is paraded around by white nationalists who are openly idolizing the Great Replacement Theory, various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and generic hatred towards people of color. They romanticize a time when the Netherlands was an all-powerful colonizer, with many victims. The road to wealth was paved with blood.

And this open expression of hatred, which certain political parties fail to see as a problem, makes me fear for my own safety.

It comes at a time when the Dutch side of my family feels comfortable to say that they don’t want their children to play or even mix with brown children. To which my mother (born in Indonesia) remarked that she is also a brown person and as a result we as a family are banned from future birthday parties. I’ve never imagined that our skin colour would be a problem for people I have bloodties with through my dad. And I am so fucking relieved he is dead, and did not have to hear this bullshit.

When hearing people talk about how bad it is to racially mix and the call for pure blood, I think about nazi Germany and the book of Trevor Noah – Born a Crime. I am mixed blood, what is the danger of a person like me existing? People forget that migration has been around for millennia. People from the Caucasus settled in the Netherlands, and we also experienced several Viking and Roman invasions. There are descendants of those. But I guess the big sin is coloured blood intermixing, no issues when it’s white.

With the rise of far-right politicians I feel less comfortable with the dominant populace. Brabant is largely homogeneous, and as a small child you get used to people always making comments about your skin color or customs that are not Dutch. They have no problem with our nasi goreng, but if you even mention anything about Indonesian customs, you have to get lost. Gamelan and a centuries-old traditional dance are reduced to a Mora chicken satay commercial. But that does not make it okay to do this to a part of my culture.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the consequences of colonization were never discussed in schools. Only that the VOC generated great wealth and made the Netherlands a world power was taught. But not who suffered for it.

Those waving the VOC flag won’t be interested in what I’m about to tell you. But it’s my duty as an Indo-European to reflect on some of the crimes committed by the Netherlands overseas.

The conquest of the Banda Islands by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), culminating in the Banda Massacre of 1621, was the gradual military conquest of the Banda Islands by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) from 1609 to 1621. The islands were largely depopulated by fighting, famine, massacres, and deportation. This was done to secure the VOC’s desired monopoly on the spice trade, particularly in nutmeg, mace, and cloves.

Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen decided that English interference and native resistance to Dutch commercial supremacy in the Bandanese archipelago had to be crushed once and for all by depopulating the largest island, Banda Besar (Lontor). The Heeren XVII gave Coen their permission and support for this. This led to the Banda Massacre, in which most of the original population was either killed or enslaved and replaced by African slaves from Madagascar.

Attack on Chinese workers. In addition to the local inhabitants, many foreigners lived on the Indonesian islands: Dutch, Portuguese, English, and Chinese. They were traders and lived in the city or worked as laborers for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). In 1740, unemployed Chinese workers revolted. They had to work extremely hard, but when there was no more work for them due to the sugar crisis, they were mercilessly thrown out onto the streets. Desperate Chinese workers tried to attack Batavia (Jakarta). All sorts of stories circulated in the city about the “Chinese enemy,” and people became afraid of the Chinese living there. A riot broke out. On October 9, VOC soldiers and European and Indo-European residents of Batavia attacked their Chinese fellow citizens. They were forcibly removed from their homes and murdered. In one day, between 5,000 and 10,000 people were killed.

When the Dutch slavery past is discussed, it usually focuses on Suriname and the West Indies. The VOC managed to keep secret that profits from the East Indies were also only possible thanks to the labor of many thousands of captives. It’s still not widely known that the Dutch colonies in Asia also relied on slave labor.
Astonishingly long rows of archive boxes full of documents from the Dutch East India Company (VOC) era have been preserved, and just as astonishingly, scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries copied shelves full of printed books from these archives. All VOC accounts and letters consistently mention African and Asian captives. But superficial research into the Dutch human trafficking trade in Asia has often only included the VOC’s accounts. The Company owned many Asian and African slaves, but many more captives were the private property of European VOC personnel and were therefore not included in the accounts.
The captives came from markets along the east coast of Africa, Madagascar, and Mauritius, along the coasts of India and Malaysia, on Sulawesi, Buton, Bali, and elsewhere in the Indonesian archipelago, all the way to the southern Philippines.
Throughout the colonies, it was openly and clearly evident that society revolved around the labor of captives. It is known that slaves constituted the majority of the population in Paramaribo and the Antilles. Less well-known still is the fact that Batavia (Jakarta), Cape Town, and other VOC cities were also slave societies from their inception.

While I am writing this and telling my mother I am writing this she comments that people won’t like me writing this. Her words: ‘You are telling this to a thick concrete wall because deep down a lot of Dutch know this but do not want to hear it. You need to be careful that you do not get in trouble for this.’
Getting into trouble for writing down historical facts? At a time when people feel comfortable enough to promote the Great Replacement Theory, at a time when people feel comfortable enough to show up at a Halloween party in an SS uniform and hit a woman with a glass who calls him out on his fascism, at a time when people feel comfortable enough to applaud a service in America that, without any justification, drags people of color off the streets and locks them up in an open-air prison camp.

No, I will not be silent. I cannot justify myself for not taking action when I see history repeating itself.