Events
The St. Louis and the Refugee Crisis
Date and Time
Monday, October 24, 2016 4:30 PM - 6:30 PM
Description
In 1939, more than 900 German and Austrian Jews boarded the S.S. St. Louis hoping to escape Nazi persecution. Most of them had legal documents to disembark in Havana, which they hoped would be a place of refuge before they emigrated to the Unites States. But complicated international politics forced them back to Europe. Dr. Diane Afoumado, Chief of the Research and Reference Branch at the Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, will present the St. Louis story using archives and artifacts from the collections at the USHMM, placing that tale into the larger context of the refugee crisis of the late 1930s.
The lecture is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Campus Outreach Lecture Program of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, supported by the generosity of the Jerome A. Yavitz Charitable Foundation, Inc., and Arlyn S. and Stephen H. Cypen. It is also supported by the Frederik Meijer Honors College.
Contact
Professor Rob Franciosi, Dept of English
616-331-3069