2008-2009

The Raoul Wallenberg Annual Program
Supported by the Leon and Toby Cooperman Fund

April 26, 2009, 7:00 p.m.
Trayes Hall, Douglass Campus Center

Scott Miller, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Fernando Chang-Muy, University of Pennsylvania School of Law
Hans Fisher, passenger on the St. Louis

In May of 1939, the Cuban government turned away the ship St. Louis,  which carried more than 900 hopeful Jewish refugees escaping Nazi Germany. The passengers subsequently sought safe haven in the United States, but were rejected once again, and the St. Louis had to embark on an uncertain return voyage to Europe. The program will explore the story of the St. Louis (1939) as well as current U.S. refugee policies. It is presented as part of the Rutgers community’s year-long commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Scott Miller is the director of the Benjamin and Vladka Meed Registry of Jewish Holocaust Survivors at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 2006, Miller published Refuge Denied: The St. Louis Passengers and the Holocaust, co-authored with Sarah A. Ogilvie, which looks into the fate of the more than 900 Jewish refugees who were aboard the ship. 

Fernando Chang-Muy is the Thomas O’Boyle lecturer in Law at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, where he teaches Refugee Law and Policy. He is the author of various articles dealing with immigration and refugees, human rights, public health and organizational capacity building.

Hans Fisher is a Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University, and was a passenger on the St. Louis.


U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum online exhibit on the St. Louis

Please RSVP to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 732-932-2033.