Immigrant memorial – Ellis Islands

Hundreds of people are sitting cooped up in the dark cabin. It smells like sweat and urine. It has been smelling like sweat and urine for days. And like garlic. Many of them eat garlic. It is said to protect you from seasickness. Nevertheless, up to two dozen passengers are lying on the hard plank beds. The motors of the old cargo ship are giving off a muffled and constant rattling noise. Mixed with that is the low whimpering of the children who are clinging to their parents' arms. These people know they will in New York and two days and they also that they never want to leave again. However, this journey is a journey into the unknown. And everyone on board is asking himself the same question. "Will they let me in?" The tension keeps growing. Hour after hour, minute after minute.

If you take the metro from Manhattan to Coney Island and get off on Brighton Beach, you will be welcomed in Cyrillic letters. The stores are Russian, the restaurants with their Eastern charms are decorated in a tackily colorful way, the kiosks are only selling Russian newspapers and on the Boardwalk, in the Café Volna or the Café Moscow you will eat pirogues an borscht instead of fries and burgers. Right next door a man is selling music tapes, Russian folk songs are sounding from a scratchy box. Life here seems to light years away from the hectic of noisy Manhattan. Here, seagulls are laughing and the waves on the Atlantic are playing their own concert on this sunny but windy fall day. Ever since Louis Zucker retired - that was 33 years ago - he sits on the wooden panels of the Boardwalk day after day, reads the New York Times or just looks out over the water. He says the newspaper and the sea were connecting him with the world. He says he would always prefer the spiritual journey to the stress of a physical one. That would protect his imagination. Sometimes he still walks as far as the amusement park of Coney Island. But for a few years now his legs have started to get slower.

The Eastern European atmosphere of Brighton Beach is being perfected by the housing projects of the 60s. Woody Allen's city neurotic Alvy Singer spent his childhood there. In the movie you can see young Alvy eating his soup while a roller coaster thunders across the roof. A few smaller families are still to be found between Ferris wheel and bumper cars, but regardless of the off-season the park has long since passed its expiration date. The old roller coaster from 1927 still reminds of the glorious times. Grass and weeds are growing at the foot of the rusty steel girders and the faded wood. It was left standing, as a monument for the amusement industry, so to speak. Same as the skyscraper-high wire mushroom, its red paint has been mostly eaten away by the sea air. "Parachutists use it as a tower for their exercise," says Louis Zucker. "It was built in 1939 for the world exhibition." And "Nathan's" as well is from back in the day - in 1916, Nathan and Ida Handwerker set up this fast food restaurant and catering service. Their hot dog started a successful international career.

The three big amusement parks on Coney Island were built around the turn of the century. At first Steeplechase (1897), then the Luna Park (1903) and one year later Dreamland that included educational elements in its philosophy with the imitation of historical buildings such as the ruins of Pompeii. However, the "cultivated" pretense was too much for the people who wanted sunshine and fun. In 1964 Irish playwright Brendan Behan described Coney Island as a terrible, fabulous and extremely proletarian institution - where thousands and thousands of ordinary people get off the metro to enjoy nothing but themselves. When, in 1965, Steeplechase was the last of the three amusement parks to close its doors, the glorious amusement park era on Coney Island came to an end. Many of the summer bungalows had to give way to huge housing projects.

Back then the people were sorted into groups according to the passenger lists. Everyone left his baggage near the entrance to go to a medical check-up on the first floor. Doctors listened to their lungs, checked their skin and fingernails and lifted up the eyelids with a flat utensil. In the main hall, underneath two huge American flags, the questioning followed. Up to 7,000 people went through there every day. The answers were flying quickly around the room - I am a carpenter. I am a carpet dealer. My uncle is living in Los Angeles. I have 30 Dollars with me. No, I didn't buy the ticket myself. - Followed by the more general questions were reading and writing tests. And finally, even the political convictions were decisive factors for citizenship. Many were glad when they could finally leave Ellis Island. Back then there was one group, names HIAS, which took care of all Jewish immigrants and took them to Manhattan after the procedure was completed.

Since 1992 Ellis Island is the worldwide most important immigration museum. Up until that time, the island had many names and owners and served many different purposes - in 1757 as a house for people who had the plague, in 1765 pirates were being executed there, from 1892 the US government used it as an immigration station. It also was a prison and a hospital. The palace-like main building of red brick and white sandstone is being flanked by four towers with pagoda-shaped domes. The immigrants called the isle of tears of broken hearts. Two percent of the more than 12 million immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924 were sent back. Sometimes parents were sent away because they arrived with critically ill children. Some already panicked when their kids were standing at the entrance with blood-shot eyes. On the old photos of Lewis Hines that are exhibited in Ellis Island, the children are looking toward the camera with very serious expressions on their faces. Almost as if they had been grounded for the rest of their lives. Many were disappointed. "I came here," a young Italian wrote to his family, "because I heard the streets here were paved with gold. First, they are not paved with gold. Second, they are not paved at all. Third, they are expecting me to pave them."

The experiences of the newly arrived, including everything down to their apartment buildings on the Lower East Side, are even documented in pictures. Or on posters, that display, for example, the Berlin Reichs-Wanderungsamt (German migration office at the beginning of the 20th century), in the Wilhelmstrasse 71 in Berlin. It was offering written and oral advice for free. Two million Germans emigrated to the US between 1860 and 1885, another million between 1890 and 1915, another million had already immigrated between 1830 and 1855. One of the most famous German immigrants was the Hamburger. People from Northern Germany brought the recipe with them in 1850.Almost half of the American population can date their immigration back to the people from Ellis Island. "Wall of Honor" is the name of a 30-meter high wall with a brass plate displaying 420,000 names of the most famous immigrants in alphabetical order. Among them are Albert Einstein, Marlene Dietrich and Barbara Streisand.

Ellis Island is something like a timeless memorial for the courage and energy that people mustered up in order to realize their dreams. But they had not only dreams, hopes and illusions in their suitcases. Above all, they imported cultural capital into the country. Woven suitcases, leather gloves, a wooden hat box or a Scottish tea pot belong to the pieces of lost baggage exhibited on Ellis Island. Hundreds of things from hundreds of people. Hundreds of stories, lives and careers.

-LITERATURE: "Brooklyn, An Illustrated History," Ed. Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier, Temple University Press, Philadelphia 1996, 292 pages.
"Ellis Island, Echoes from a nation's past", Ed. Susan Jonas, Aperture Foundation, 1989, 149 pages, 39,95 Dollar.

-MUSEUM ELLIS ISLAND: The Circle Line Statue of Liberty Ferry starts from Battery Park in the south of Manhattan every day between 9am and 5pm. One ticket is $7. More information under: 269 5755.

-INTERNET: If you are looking for your ancestors and would like to know where they settled down, this can be easily found out online, just enter their first name and family name and you will access the administration archives. Find out more on www.ellisislandsrecord.org