Detainees Always Had to Worry
While Haas experienced the more heavy-handed treatment of the men’s dorm, immigrant Mary Belemjian, arrived at Ellis Island from Turkey in 1922 when she was fifteen years old, recalls Ellis Island quite differently. Her father did not pass the health examination, resulting in a four-day stay on the island. “They thought he had something wrong with his eye.” Her family was detained until his eye problem cleared up. Belemjian recalls, “It was a beautiful place, and they were feeding us, you know, but we were so scared that they were going to send us back, we didn’t enjoy it. But if were didn’t scared [sic], it was a nice place.”