- Headline
-
My Day
- Publication Date
- Saturday, September 23, 1944
- Historical Event
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FDR Shelters Refugees in Oswego, NY
This database includes 685 articles about this event - Article Type
- Newspaper
- Page Section and Number
- 5
- Author/Byline
- Eleanor Roosevelt (UFS)
- Image Text
- My Day By Eleanor Roosevelt Hyde Park, Thursday Tuesday evening I went with Mrs. Henry Morgenthau, Jr., to Syracuse, where we spent the night. In the morning Mr. Joseph Smart called for us, and we went to Oswego to visit the refugee shelter where the United States is temporarily offering hospitality 982 refugees from concentration to camps in Italy. Our Army there was glad to have them come to this Country, and since •Fort Ontario is not being used at present, they are housed there in soldiers' barracks. Partitions have been put up, affording them some privacy, but only the absolute necessities of life are being provided. Forty-five cents a day per person is what is allowed for food, regulär iron cots and springs with cotton mattresses, army blankets, an occasional bare table and a few stiff chairs- this is the furniture of what must be: considered a temporary home. Restrictions are plentiful, and there is much work to be done around the place; but at least the menace of death is not ever-present. They have elected a committee of their own which decides on questions concerning camp organization and direction, and they work closely with the camp director, Mr. Smart: Oswego has an advisory committee that works with theirs, and they have set up recreation, education and business sections, so that both the shelter and the city may profit by their contacts. Volunteers come out to teach English but since most of the people in the shelter are professional people and frequently have many talents, they, too, have much to offer to the community. After lunch, for instance, an opera singer from Yugoslavia sang for us, and have rarely enjoyed anything more. I was. much touched by the flowers which were given me, and esper cially by some of the gifts, for these, in the absence of money, represented work, One talented "young woman had put a great deal of, work into her temporary home. Although clothes have to be hung on hooks in the wall, she had covered them with a piece of unbleached muslin, and up above of had animals, painted stars and and cut angels, I out figures which were placed all over the plain surface to become a decorative wall covering. Brightly colored pictures from magi azines and papers had been cut out and pasted elsewhere on the walls. and colorful covers had been made for their beds. The effort put into it speaks volumes for what these people have undergone, and for the char acter which has brought them through. Somehow you feel that there is any compensation for suf fering, it must some day bring them something beautiful in return for all the horrors they have lived through (Copyright, 1944, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)
- History Unfolded Contributor
- Randall S.
- Location of Research
- Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)
Learn More about this Historical Event: FDR Shelters Refugees in Oswego, NY
- United States Policy Toward Jewish Refugees, 1941–1952 (Encyclopedia Article)
- The United States and the Holocaust: Rescue Attempts (Encyclopedia Article)
- War Refugee Board: Activities (Encyclopedia Article)
- Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter (Bibliography)
- Oral Histories: Emergency Refugee Shelter at Fort Ontario (Oswego State University of New York)
Bibliography
Breitman, Richard, and Alan Kraut. American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933–1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Feingold, Henry. The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938–1945. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970.
Friedman, Saul. No Haven for the Oppressed: United States Policy Toward Jewish Refugees, 1938–1945. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1973.
Gruber, Ruth. Haven: The Dramatic Story of 1000 World War II Refugees and How They Came to America. New York: Times Books/Random House, 2000.
Lowenstein, Sharon. “A New Deal for Refugees: The Promise and Reality of Oswego.” In America, American Jews, and the Holocaust, edited by Jeffrey S. Gurock, 301–317. New York: Routledge, 1998.
Lowenstein, Sharon R. Token Refuge: The Story of the Jewish Refugee Shelter at Oswego, 1944–1946. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.
Marks, Edward B. Token Shipment: The Story of America’s War Refugee Shelter. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, [1946].
Smart, Joseph H. Don’t Fence Me In!: Fort Ontario Refugees: How They Won Their Freedom. Salt Lake City: Heritage Arts, 1991.
Syrkin, Marie. “At Fort Ontario.” In The State of the Jews, 247–254. Washington, DC: New Republic Books, 1980.
Warnes, Kathy. “Don’t Fence Me In!”: Memories of the Fort Ontario Refugees and their Friends. Oswego, NY: Safe Haven Inc., Museum and Education Center, 2004.
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