01/13/2026
In the predawn darkness, 100 men, women and children, braving the sub-zero temperature and a snowstorm, climbed aboard silver Greyhound buses, which lumbered away from Fort Ontario and headed for Niagara Falls.
During World War II, nearly 1,000 mostly Jewish Holocaust refugees were housed at the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter in Oswego, the only case of the U.S. sheltering Holocaust refugees during the war.
On Saturday, on the 80th anniversary of the first group of refugees’ departure from Fort Ontario, historian Rebecca Erbelding will deliver a presentation about the refugees and their resettlement in the U.S. The event, which is sponsored by the Safe Haven Holocaust Refugee Shelter Museum in cooperation with Fort Ontario State Historic Site, is open to the public.
Erbelding was featured in the 2022 Ken Burns PBS documentary miniseries “The U.S. and the Holocaust.” She is the author of “Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America’s Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe” and is currently working on a book about the Fort Ontario refugee shelter, due out in early 2027.
While the refugees housed at Fort Ontario avoided the fate of millions of Holocaust victims, their future in the U.S. remained uncertain.
Admitted outside the country’s strict immigration system, they had no legal status and were considered guests of the president. They had to agree to return to Europe after the war, though the government eventually allowed the refugees to stay and resettle in the U.S. Erbelding said their story is unique, but also about much larger issues.
OSWEGO — In the predawn darkness, 100 men, women and children, braving the sub-zero temperature and a snowstorm, climbed aboard silver Greyhound buses, which lumbered away from Fort Ontario and
