Sculpture acquired by the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Museum in 2015
John Williams · Tanglewood Festival Chorus · Boston Pops Orchestra
Arranger: Glenn Abe Osser (My talented father-in-law)
Click here or on the album image to hear a gorgeous arrangement of God Bless America.
“My Family Odyssey: April 14, 1921”
The little boy, age 3, perched on his father’s shoulders, with his Mom leading the way, is my Dad, Itzhak Ottenberg, also spelled Ortenberg by some relatives. He was born near Kiev, Ukraine. Sadly, his Dad , my grandfather Jacob, passed away from illness. But fortunately, relatives welcomed my Dad and his brave mother, Feiga, my grandmother, to Brooklyn, New York.
The Ellis Island registry listed them arriving in 1921, on the Red Star Line S. S. Finland, from Antwerp, originally from the Ukraine.
My grandparents and Dad, and other passengers are looking at the Statue of Liberty and the New York City landscape, a bas-relief on the back of the boy’s jacket. The violin is reminiscent of the beautiful music my Dad played for us most days after work as a talented Musician & Mechanical Engineer. The flag, with 48 stars in 1921, is symbolic of the pride my Dad always felt being an American citizen.”
With creative license, my 3 year old Dad is sitting, symbolically, on the shoulders of his own Dad, Jacob. Sadly, I never met him, so I created him too, giving him life again, arriving with his wife and child in America.
“The Sculpture, “My Family Odyssey” is a valuable contribution to the understanding of the personal lives of the immigrants who came to the United States through Ellis Island. The museum will use the piece in permanent and temporary exhibits, for loan to other institutions and for research by historians and others interested in the Statue of Liberty and American immigration.”
– John Piltzecker
Superintendent of the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Museum
National Park Service – United States Department of the Interior
http://www.nps.gov/elis/index.htm
“Dedicating the song to my Dad, who immigrated to Ellis Island when he was 3, traveling on the Red Star Line Ship called the SS Finland from Antwerp, Belgium.” Today that shipping line has become a great museum with stories of immigration over the years it operated, including my families story. If you have a connection to their ships, they are interested in your story too. They also a piano owned by the great composer Irving Berlin. Berlin traveled to New York on the SS Rijnland in 1893. Red Star Line Museum, Antwerp, Belgium.
“Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor ” – Norman Luboff Choir
From Irving Berlin’s 1949 musical ‘Miss Liberty’. Straight from the 1958 vinyl.
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
This poem is engraved on the Statue of Liberty Monument and inspired the song:
The New Colossus
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
by Emma Lazarus, New York City, 1883
