Tags: S.S. Quanza

A play written in seventeen scenes, that chronicles the true story of the S.S. Quanza, a steamship that carried Jewish refugees from Lisbon in 1940. Not permitted to disembark in Mexico, the ship arrived in Hampton Roads, Virginia with over eighty Jewish passengers, where two married U.S. Jewish attorneys fought to keep them from returning to Europe. Finally, due to the intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt, they were able to leave the ship. The play includes historical figures, such as Rabbi Stephen Wise, Breckinridge Long, and Eleanor Roosevelt as well as fictional versions of actual persons, including the attorneys.