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ELLIS ISLAND HERITAGE
They
Come To America
Land Of Opportunity
Text and Photos by Tim Boxer
EL
BROOKS, whose latest
production, Young Frankenstein, is currently on Broadway, said
his father Max Kaminsky was three years old when he left
Austria and arrived at Ellis Island in 1896. Max grew up on the Lower
East Side and went into his father Abraham’s business,
Kaminsky Brothers Herring Company.
"My
grandfather Abraham sold herring, and learned Swedish and Norwegian
before he learned English," Mel said. "For me it could have
been show business or the herring business. I could have gone either
way."
Mel, who grew up
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, told his story at the seventh annual Ellis
Island Family Heritage Awards on Ellis Island. He was one of four
honorees who received a copy of the ship’s passenger manifest which
documents their ancestors’ arrival at the gateway to the land of
freedom and opportunity.
Each made
significant contributions to the American experience. Mel, 82, and his
three brothers served in World War II. His only surviving brother, Bernie,
86, lives in Las Vegas and couldn’t attend the ceremony.
Mel is going to
Vienna on June 30 for the opening of his spectacularly successful
musical, The Producers.
"I don’t
know how they feel about Jews," he said, "so I’m taking my
helmet and rifle with me."
Lee Iacocca,
the founding chairman of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis island
Foundation, who presented the awards, also honored suspense novelist Mary
Higgins Clark, whose father came from Ireland; University of Miami
president Donna Shalala, whose grandparents came from Lebanon
and Syria; and the late B.C. "Bertie" Forbes who came
from Scotland and founded a magazine named Doers and Doings,
which he later changed to Forbes.
"All four
of my grandparents came through Ellis Island," Shalala said.
"One was turned away due to an eye disease. So she went all the
way around and snuck across the Mexican border."
Shalala has
served as president of Hunter College in New York from 1980 to 1987.
In 1993 President Bill Clinton appointed her Secretary of Health and
Human Services.
"I have
shamrocks on my DNA," Higgins said. "The Irish, by nature,
storytellers."
Higgins started
writing poems at age 6. She got her first story published after 40
rejections. Today she reigns as the queen of suspense. Her latest
thriller is Where Are
You Now?
Stephen Briganti,
president of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, said when
the funding is complete, he will announce a new project, the Peopling
of America Center. "This will expand on the story of Ellis Island
by including those who came before Ellis Island and after."
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