The Trial of Franklin D. Roosevelt

A play about the ill-fated voyage in 1939 of an ocean liner, the SS St. Louis. On board were more than 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Having traveled from Hamburg, Germany to Havana, Cuban officials only allowed a couple dozen passengers to disembark. In desperation, passengers asked the United States to give them sanctuary, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt chose not to override the United States' strict immigration quotas. When they were also refused entry to Canada, the refugees were forced to return to Europe where 254 of the passengers died in the Holocaust. In The Trial of Franklin D. Roosevelt the audience serves as the jury.