The border crossing into Germany or Austria-Hungary was one of the most dangerous and fraught stages in the journey west. Whether the migrants had passports and travel tickets, or just knew how to bribe their way across the border, they would find most of the Russian border guards corrupt. Many crossed through woodland or rivers to avoid police on the highways.

Mr Herman Landau gave evidence to the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration on the conditions that migrants faced.

After the panic that followed the outbreak of cholera in Hamburg in 1892, the Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) and North German Lloyd (NDL) agreed to police the German border to ensure that any emigrant travelling through the German empire had first passed a thorough medical examination on entry. By 1895 over 70 border stations had been created along the eastern frontier of Germany, adding further to the time it took to cross the border.

The border stations were designed to cleanse 'dirty migrants from eastern Europe', and prevent 'undesirables' from infecting the native inhabitants of Germany's emigrant ports. They also served to 'persuade' the travellers to purchase tickets on German-owned ships.

Having walked, bribed or swum across the border into Western Europe, and (after 1895) passed a medical examination, the migrant then had to travel to a North Sea port. Most went by train, but others (such as the 4,000 Romanian Fussgeyer who walked across Europe in 1900) trekked across mainland Europe on foot.

At each stage in the journey west, the poor could receive help from Jewish organisations. The ORT and OSE in St. Petersburg, the Israelitische Allianz in Austria, the Hilfsverein in Berlin, and the Alliance Israélite Universelle and Jewish Colonisation Association in Paris, all helped the migrants at some stage in the move from shtetl to seaport. But it was the Hilfsverein in Berlin and the Montefiore Vereeniging in Rotterdam, both offering overnight shelter, that were most valuable to the travel-weary migrant .

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