The story of the S.S. St. Louis (1939) and current U.S. refugee policies will be discussed
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Rutgers’ Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life will present a public lecture, “Refugees and Safe Havens,” Sunday, April 26. Scott Miller and Fernando Chang-Muy, experts in the Holocaust and immigration law, will speak at 7 p.m. in Trayes Hall, Douglass Campus Center, 100 George Street, New Brunswick.
Miller is the coauthor of Refuge Denied: The St Louis Passengers and the Holocaust, and director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Registry of Holocaust Survivors; Chang-Muy is the Thomas O’Boyle lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.
The S.S. St. Louis, which left Germany in 1939 with more than 900 Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution, was turned away by the Cuban government and by the United States. The ocean liner was forced to return to Europe, where many perished. Hans Fisher, Rutgers professor emeritus and a passenger on the ship, will speak at the event.
The program includes a discussion of current U.S. refugee policies and is part of Rutgers’ yearlong commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The event is the annual Raoul Wallenberg Program supported by the Leon and Toby Cooperman Fund.
The Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life connects the university with the community through public lectures, symposia, Jewish communal initiatives, cultural events and teacher training. The talk is free and open to the public. Advance registration requested. To register, send an e-mail to csjlrsvp@rci.rutgers.edu or call 732-932-2033. For more information, visit jewishstudies.rutgers.edu.
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Media Contact: Debbie Walter
732-932-7084 ext. 614