On June 2, 1939, the SS St. Louis circled off the cost of Florida, waiting to hear if the 908 passengers on board, who had been blocked from landing in Cuba, would be allowed to enter the United States. Four days later, after the US denied them entry, the ship headed back to Europe. This Curator’s Corner focused on a photograph in our gallery that shows the family members of former HMTC Chairman Howard Maier boarding the St. Louis and described the larger context of this ill-fated voyage.

If you missed this program you can watch it now on Youtube:

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

Join the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County (HMTC), in conjunction with the David Taub Reel Upstanders Film Series, for a post-screening discussion of Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War (available on Amazon Prime). Please watch the film on your own to learn about a Unitarian minister and his wife who left their home in Massachusetts in 1939 to help rescue Jewish refugees from Europe. Then join HMTC for a virtual discussion with David Angeles, Senior Partnership Officer for Crisis Response at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, the current organization that traces its roots back to the Unitarian group that sent the Sharps to Europe and that works today to advance human rights and social justice around the world.

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.