The story of post-WWII emigration from the Netherlands to North America has been put in statistics and graphs. Although this may be helpful to some researchers, it does not put a face on this phenomena of you and me. Who were all those people who took this huge leap of faith to transplant themselves from the Netherlands to North America.
Dutch emigrants literally booked passage on any seaworthy vessel destined for North America: freighters, troop transport ships, antiquated passenger ships and ocean liners. They boarded them mainly in Rotterdam, but also in Belgian, English, French and even Italian and Scandinavian harbours.
The history of early post-WWII emigration from the Netherlands to Canada has been obscured by the lack of passenger lists of the sailings of the Waterman in June 1947, and all the sailings of the Kota Inten (1948), the Tabinta (1947-1949), and the Volendam (1949-1951). These sailings took the vanguard of this huge migration wave to their destination.
Through Project I Remember we collected many passenger lists but there is very little from those who arrived via non-Dutch ships and any airline. The passengers of these venues are important for the story of Dutch immigration.