The Flight from Hitler's Germany: The Fateful Voyage of the St. Louis

In 1939, the luxury liner MS St.Louis began a voyage from Hitler’s Germany to Cuba with 937 Jewish refugees on board. With landing permits secured, these refugees looked forward to safe passage. But on reaching Cuba, most of the refugees were turned away. Subsequent pleas to the U.S. government for entry were refused, and the St. Louis was forced to return to Europe where many of the passengers perished in the Holocaust. This two-part presentation is about the international refugee crisis in Europe in the late 1930s caused by Hitler and the story of one of the passengers who survived.

Paul Shankman is professor emeritus at CU-Boulder and teaches a course on the Holocaust. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1973. Paul will be joined by Joan Nagel, a retired Boulder attorney whose father’s uncle and family were passengers on the St. Louis, and Sandra Saltrese-Miller, a Boulder attorney who has specialized in immigration cases, including deportations, for decades