From a Wall Street Journal story by Jon Hilsenrath headlined “What America Gave My Father—and What He Gave Back”:

In a poignant moment in the Ken Burns documentary “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” Joseph Hilsenrath breaks into tears describing his first encounter with the Statue of Liberty. It was a foggy September morning in 1941 when he approached Ellis Island on the deck of a boat called the Serpa Pinto. An 11-year-old Jewish refugee separated from his parents, he had spent two years shuttling through French orphanages in flight from the Nazis. Remembering the sight of the statue 80 years later, he was still stirred by his first enchanted vision of freedom.