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(H)our History Lesson: Fort Ontario, NY and Jewish Refugees in WWII America
In 1944, 982 Jewish refugees arrived from parts of Southern and Eastern Europe to Fort Ontario in Oswego, NY. These were the only refugees the United States took in during World War II. They lived in the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter for a year before President Harry Truman granted them resident status at the end of the war.
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Image Credit: Refugees Registering at the Fort Ontario Refugee Camp, August 1944. Photo by Hikaru Iwasaki, photographer, US Dept. of the Interior. Public domain, courtesy National.
Selected Resources for Teachers
Library of Congress 3Hide All
National Archives 7Hide All
- Analyzing a Writing Assignment by a Teenage Refugee in New York During World War II
- Investigating the Holocaust
- Primary sources related to Jewish history in the holdings of the National Archives
- Lesson Plans on Truman's Recognition of Israel (site supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities)
- The SS Quanza and European War Refugees
- Truman Presidential Inquiries: Recognition of Israel
- U.S. Policy and the Holocaust Refugee Crisis
National Gallery of Art 3Hide All
National Endowment for the Humanities 11Hide All
- Anne Frank: One of Hundreds of Thousands
- BackStory: To Be a Citizen? The History of Becoming American
- Mission US: “City of Immigrants” Mission 4 (site supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities)
- Coming of Age in the Holocaust—Coming of Age Now
- Hebrew National
- Holocaust and Resistance
- Jazz and World War II: A Rally to Resistance, A Catalyst for Victory
- Jewish American Heritage Month
- The Jewish Americans
- Jewish Pioneers