Flight and Survival: Jewish Refugees in Mexico in the Holocaust

Tuesday, February 18, 2025, at 12:00pm EST

In the 1930s and the 1940s of the 20th century, the Mexican government, like many other Latin American governments, imposed severe restrictions on the entry of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism into the country. Legal and political criteria combined to make it so that Jews, many of whom had family members living in Mexico, had to wait several months or even years in Europe before being able to emigrate, while others never obtained visas and perished in the Holocaust. Join Dr. Yael Siman, Professor of Social and Political Sciences at the Iberoamericana University in Mexico City, for a discussion about the experiences of those who, despite these enormous obstacles, managed to reach Mexico, as well as the many ways they adapted upon arrival.

This event is part of the 2024-25 Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Colloquium, “Circuitous Exchanges" and is co-sponsored by the Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center in White Plains; the Reiff Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at Christopher Newport University; the Martin-Springer Institute at Northern Arizona University; the Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy at the University of Nebraska at Omaha; the Holocaust, Genocide & Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan University; the Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at Western Washington University; and the Center for the Study of Genocide & Human Rights at Rutgers University. For more information about the KHC, please visit https://khc.qcc.cuny.edu.

To attend in person:

Registration ahead of time is required and visitors must show ID upon entering the campus at Queensborough Community College (QCC).

This is a general RSVP. IT DOES NOT GUARANTEE A SEAT. The event in open to the general public on a first-come first-serve basis.

For elevator access to the KHC, enter the QCC Administration building and follow signs for the Kupferberg Holocaust Center. For directions to QCC’s campus, please visit https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/about/index.html#gettingHere.

Host or Publisher The Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center