George,
Firstly, you are certainly not abusing the forum, by posing your questions.
In addition to what PN has written, I believe that 'barque' was more a nineteenth century term and referred to the ship's rig, in that it was square-rigged (with square sails) on the fore and main masts, but fore-and-aft rigged only (ie. with no square sails, but with a 'spanker' along the vessel's centreline) on the mizzen. The term 'bark', besides being the spelling used more in America, was also used in England to refer to a type of hull, particularly during the eighteenth century, and usually meant a small, strongly-built vessel. Hence for example the vessels used in the coasting coal trade, and subsequently used by Cook on his voyages, were known as 'cat barks'.
The kind of vessel you are referring to, is more akin to an Indiaman rather than a warship, the latter being the vessel type we usually deal with on the forum. Warships were not usually so thoughtfully divided up below decks into cabins for the crew, officers excepted! The crew would have slept in hammocks, slung from the beams, not usually in nice, comfy, bunks (although hammocks can be so too!) I believe most Indiamen of whatever country were divided up into various groupings, steerage, cabin, etc. and each would have reflected the social standing of the passengers situated there. Of course the ship would also be carrying cargo, since there were no purely passenger ships in those days.
From the above, I take it the vessel you refer to was a late nineteenth century German vessel. Since they are crossing the Atlantic, I wonder if could they be bound for America as emigrants?
From googling around I found out that 'Zwischendeck' does mean steerage, so your own thought on this might be near the truth!
_________________ Kester.
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