Main Menu

Lecture: The MS St. Louis and the Refugee Crisis

Plan Your Visit

SOLD OUT

Learn about the dramatic and tragic events of the MS St. Louis.

In the summer of 1939, more than 900 German and Austrian Jews boarded the MS St. Louis, hoping to escape Nazi persecution. Most of them had legal documents allowing them to disembark in Havana, which they hoped would be a place of refuge before eventual emigration to the U.S. But complex Cuban, American, and international politics forced the passengers back to Europe. After leaving the ship in Antwerp, the refugees dispersed into Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Great Britain. Dr. Diane Afoumado presents the dramatic story of the St. Louis through archival documents, photographs, and artifacts from the collections of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and places the incident within the broader context of the refugee crisis during the late 1930s.

In English with simultaneous translation in French.

Presented in conjunction with the World at War – International Speaker Series, an annual series of academic events, presented by the Canadian War Museum.

Presenter

Dr. Diane F. Afoumado is Chief of the Research and Reference Branch at the Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. A former Assistant Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Paris 10-Nanterre and the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris, she also worked for the two French Commissions related to compensation to Jewish victims. In addition, she was a Historian for the Archival Division of the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine – Mémorial de la Shoah/Shoah Memorial.

Dr. Afoumado is also the author of several books, including: L’affiche antisémite en France sous l’Occupation, (Berg International, 2008); Exil impossible. L’errance des réfugiés juifs du paquebot « St.Louis » (L’Harmattan, 2005), co-author with Serge Klarsfeld of La spoliation dans les camps de province, (La documentation française, 2000). In addition, she has contributed to the following publications: “The ‘Care and Maintenance in Germany’ Collection – A Reflection of DP Self-Identification and Postwar Emigration,” in: Jahrbuch des International Tracing Service, (Wallstein Verlag, 2014); Repicturing the Second World War. Representations in Film and Television, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); and Evoking Genocide. Scholars and Activists Describe the Works That Shaped Their Lives, (The Key Publishing House Inc, 2009), and has written more than 20 articles related to the Holocaust.

Photo:
Ocean liner St. Louis
Maritime Museum of the Atlantic
M2007.38.1 Album, p. 2.

Dates & Times
English French
Thursday, April 12, 2018
7:30 p.m.
7:30 p.m.