The Ft Ontario Holocaust Refugees (1944) w/ Sarah Botstein

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2023

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s July 18th. This day in 1944, a group of almost one thousand refugees are headed to the United States, where they would eventually be housed at Ft Ontario, in New York. This was the only large group of Holocaust refugees permitted to enter the United States during World War II.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by filmmaker Sarah Botstein to discuss the Ft Ontario group and how the US thought about refugees in this era.

Sarah was a co-director and producer, alongside Ken Burns and Lynn Novak, of the documentary series “The U.S. And The Holocaust.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.
0:07.6	My name is Jody African.
0:09.4	This day July in August 1944, 982 refugees are traveling from Europe headed for Fort Ontario,
0:18.6	which is in upstate New York, just a little north of Syracuse on Lake Ontario if you know that region.
0:24.1	We've talked on this show about a few other key moments of refugees from the Holocaust
0:28.8	making their way or not making their way to the United States.
0:31.8	We talked about the plan which didn't
0:33.3	come to fruition to take refugees to Alaska. We've talked about the so-called
0:37.7	voyage of the damned, a ship in 1939 full of refugees that was refused entry in Cuba than the United States and
0:44.9	Canada and ultimately had to return to Europe. But today's story is about
0:49.2	refugees who would arrive in the United States at Fort Ontario, this would turn out to be the only
0:54.3	large group of Holocaust refugees who were permitted to enter the United States
0:58.4	through World War II. Our special guest for this episode is filmmaker Sarah Botstein who has for years worked
1:04.8	closely with Ken Burns and Lynn Novick and Sarah was the co-director and producer of the series
1:10.0	they did the truly excellent series called The United States and the Holocaust.
1:14.4	Sarah, thanks for making the time. Thanks for joining us.
1:17.0	Thank you for having me. This is a really fun show and all of our all of our friends
1:21.0	were really excited. So a lot of people are tuning in yeah
1:24.0	and you told us just before you started what can I out you hear you told us just
1:28.3	before you started recording that you just got nominated for an Emmy for this year
1:31.9	so congratulations you're I can see the glow.
1:34.4	Thank you, thank you. So and here of course as always Nicole Hammer of
	...

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