Ray Sun and Zili Chang on “Papers, Ships, and Tweets: American Policy toward European Jews in the 1930s and its Memory in Contemporary Battles over Refugees”

Raymond Sun, an associate professor in the Department of History and a specialist in the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, will show the historical parallels and roots of current official attempts to restrict the number of refugees admitted to the United States by presenting an overview of the United States’ unwelcoming policy and hostile public opinion toward German and Austrian Jews seeking safe haven between 1933 and 1939.  Zili Chang, a senior History major, will present research from her Honors thesis that examines the current memory and political usage via social media of the infamous case of the passenger liner St. Louis, whose +900 Jewish refugees were not allowed to disembark in Cuba or the United States and were forced to return to Europe, where over 250 were eventually murdered in the Holocaust. Verification of attendance available.

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